The Claim

Designated more than ten major Latin American cartels as terrorist organizations, expanding U.S. counterterror authorities.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Three factual claims: (1) more than ten Latin American cartels were designated as terrorist organizations; (2) the designated groups are “major”; (3) the designations expanded U.S. counterterror authorities. The claim is placed in “REASSERTING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP ON THE WORLD STAGE,” framing a domestic law enforcement tool as a foreign policy achievement.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That these designations represent a decisive new tool against Latin American organized crime. That the counterterror authorities gained are both novel and effective — that law enforcement lacked adequate tools before these designations. That the designations demonstrate American leadership in hemispheric security. That classifying drug cartels as “terrorist organizations” reflects their actual nature rather than a policy choice. That the expansion of counterterror authorities is unambiguously beneficial.

What is conspicuously absent?

Any acknowledgment that this claim is the sixth separate “win” derived from a single executive order (EO 14157) — joining Items #19, #30, #36, #48, and #62. Any mention that the “expanded counterterror authorities” are primarily immigration enforcement tools (watchlisting, TRIG inadmissibility, material support bars) rather than criminal prosecution tools — the most effective criminal tools (RICO, drug trafficking statutes, conspiracy charges) were already available. Any discussion of Mexico’s vigorous objection, including proposed constitutional reforms to protect sovereignty. Any acknowledgment of the collateral damage: asylum seekers who paid cartel smuggling fees now face permanent inadmissibility as “material supporters of terrorism,” and legitimate businesses operating in Mexico face criminal liability for inadvertent contact with cartel-affiliated actors. Any recognition that Control Risks’ one-year assessment found the designations “changed the legal landscape for multinationals” but “not changed the cartels” themselves. Any mention that the initial designation covered eight organizations, not ten — reaching “more than ten” required subsequent waves of designations extending beyond Mexico to Haiti, Ecuador, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Colombia.

Padding Analysis: Sixth Entry from One Executive Order

This is the sixth item on the “365 wins” list derived from Executive Order 14157, signed January 20, 2025. The prior five:

• Item #19: “Blocked more than 10,000 individuals with narcoterrorism or cartel ties” — the screening results produced by the expanded terrorism watchlist
• Item #30: “Invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport brutal Tren de Aragua gang members” — used the FTO designation as legal foundation for AEA invocation
• Item #36: “Added 85,000 new identities to the NCTC’s terrorist database” — the watchlist expansion required by the FTO designation
• Item #48: “Imposed crippling sanctions on some of the world’s most deadly cartels” — the SDGT/sanctions component of the same designations
• Item #62: “Dismantled Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and other transnational gang-related criminal networks by designating cartels as terrorist organizations” — claimed the same designation “dismantled” organizations that every agency describes as still operating

Item #173 now lists the act of designation itself as a foreign policy achievement, after the prior five items already claimed credit for the designation’s various downstream effects. This is the most straightforward of the six — it describes the actual policy action — but it is listed last, after the effects have already been individually harvested as separate “wins.” [^173-a1]

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

Secretary Rubio designated 15 Latin American criminal organizations as FTOs and SDGTs between February and December 2025. The designations occurred in six waves: (1) February 20, 2025: eight organizations — Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, Cartel del Noreste, Gulf Cartel, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Carteles Unidos, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua; (2) May 2, 2025: Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif (Haiti); (3) September 4, 2025: Los Choneros and Los Lobos (Ecuador); (4) September 24, 2025: Barrio 18 (El Salvador/Guatemala/Honduras); (5) November 24, 2025: Cartel de los Soles (Venezuela); (6) December 17, 2025: Clan del Golfo (Colombia). The claim of “more than ten” is factually correct — though it understates the actual total by January 2026. [^173-a2]

The FTO and SDGT designations expanded counterterrorism legal authorities applicable to the designated organizations. The designations unlocked several specific authorities: (1) material support prohibition under 18 U.S.C. 2339B, carrying penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment (life if death results); (2) terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds (TRIG) under INA 212(a)(3)(B), making anyone who provided material support permanently inadmissible; (3) NCTC authority to add members and associates to the terrorism watchlist (TIDE/TSDS); (4) SDGT secondary sanctions allowing Treasury to target foreign financial institutions; (5) enhanced intelligence-sharing authorities through counterterrorism channels. These authorities are legally real and represent genuine expansion beyond the prior enforcement framework. [^173-a3]

The most effective criminal prosecution tools against cartels did not require the FTO designation. RICO (18 U.S.C. 1961-1968), the Continuing Criminal Enterprise statute (21 U.S.C. 848), the Kingpin Act, IEEPA sanctions, drug trafficking statutes, and conspiracy charges were all available before the designation. The DOJ’s most significant enforcement actions against designated cartels — including RICO prosecutions of Tren de Aragua members and Sinaloa Cartel leadership indictments — used these pre-existing authorities. Material support charges (18 U.S.C. 2339B) were layered onto existing charges beginning in mid-2025 but were not the primary prosecution mechanism. [^173-a4]

Mexico vigorously protested the designations as a sovereignty violation. President Sheinbaum stated Mexico was not consulted before the designations, proposed constitutional reforms to articles 39 and 40 to protect national sovereignty, and declared: “The Mexican people will under no circumstances accept interventions, intrusions, or any other action from abroad that are detrimental to the integrity, independence, or sovereignty of the nation.” Mexico’s legal position is that cartels do not meet the definition of terrorist organizations under Mexican or international law because they are motivated by economic gain rather than political ideology. Despite the protests, bilateral cooperation continued — Sheinbaum deployed 10,000 National Guard troops and transferred 55 high-level drug traffickers to U.S. custody. [^173-a5]

Control Risks’ one-year assessment found the designations “changed the legal landscape” but “not changed the cartels.” The March 2026 analysis by Control Risks concluded that the designations’ primary practical impact was on multinational companies and financial institutions operating in Mexico, not on cartel operations. Trucking insurance in cartel-affected areas rose 30%, logistics costs increased 8-12%, and three Mexican financial institutions (CIBanco, Intercam Banco, Vector Casa de Bolsa) ceased operations following FinCEN enforcement. The cartels themselves, however, were not assessed as operationally disrupted. [^173-a6]

Strong Inferences

The “expanded counterterror authorities” primarily serve immigration enforcement and political signaling, not criminal prosecution. The authorities unlocked by FTO designation — watchlisting (producing 85,000+ database entries per Item #36), TRIG inadmissibility, material support bars — are tools that primarily affect immigration screening and border enforcement. The criminal prosecution additions (material support charges under 2339B) have been layered onto existing drug trafficking and RICO indictments but have not been the driving force behind major enforcement actions. CSIS noted the designation “unlocked a suite of tools for the executive branch” but the most significant tools were already available. The authorities that are genuinely new are immigration bars and intelligence reclassification — which generate impressive statistics (10,000 blocked, 85,000 watchlisted) while the underlying enforcement reality remains largely unchanged. [^173-a7]

The FTO designation creates severe collateral damage to asylum seekers and legitimate businesses. Under TRIG, anyone who provided “material support” to a designated FTO — including paying smuggling fees to cartels who control virtually all migration routes — faces permanent inadmissibility. CLINIC documented that asylum seekers fleeing cartel violence face a paradox: their contact with the cartels they fled makes them inadmissible. Simultaneously, the material support prohibition creates criminal liability risk for businesses operating in regions where cartels are embedded in legitimate economic activity. Control Risks noted cartels constitute Mexico’s “fifth-largest employer” with 160,000-185,000 workers and capture approximately $770 million annually from avocado exports alone. The designation converts what were commercial compliance issues into potential terrorism-finance violations. [^173-a8]

Not all 15 designated organizations are “major Latin American cartels.” The claim characterizes the designated entities as “major Latin American cartels,” but the group includes: two Haitian gangs (Viv Ansanm, Gran Grif) that are not cartels and have no drug trafficking nexus to the United States; two Ecuadorian gangs (Los Choneros, Los Lobos) that function as local affiliates of Mexican cartels rather than independent major organizations; Barrio 18, a street gang; and Cartel de los Soles, which CNN reported experts question whether it “may not technically exist” as a formal organization. The six Mexican cartels and CJNG are unquestionably major trafficking organizations, but the broader group is heterogeneous — some are gangs, some are affiliates, one may be more a political label than an organization. [^173-a9]

Informed Speculation

The placement of this claim in “REASSERTING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP ON THE WORLD STAGE” is revealing. The FTO designation is primarily a domestic legal tool — it creates criminal liability under U.S. law, triggers U.S. immigration bars, and affects U.S. financial institutions. Its “foreign policy” dimension is largely unilateral: Mexico was not consulted and vigorously protested. The UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism condemned the framework. The designation did not emerge from multilateral cooperation or diplomacy — it was an executive order imposed on the first day of the administration. Calling this “reasserting American leadership” reframes a unilateral domestic action as an achievement of international statesmanship.

The expanding scope of designations — from Mexican cartels to Haitian gangs to Ecuadorian affiliates to a Venezuelan government network to a Colombian armed group — suggests the FTO tool is being used not as a targeted counterterrorism measure but as a general-purpose foreign policy instrument. Each designation expands U.S. legal authority over a new country or region, creates new grounds for immigration enforcement against nationals of that country, and generates new entries for future “wins” lists. The Cartel de los Soles designation, in particular, was widely assessed as a tool to pressure Venezuela’s government rather than a counternarcotics measure.

What the Evidence Shows

The factual core of this claim is accurate. The administration designated 15 Latin American criminal organizations as FTOs and SDGTs between February and December 2025 — well exceeding “more than ten.” The designations did expand U.S. counterterror authorities in legally meaningful ways: material support prohibition, terrorism-related inadmissibility, watchlist expansion, secondary sanctions, and enhanced intelligence-sharing.

Where the claim misleads is in what it omits. First, the “expanded counterterror authorities” sound like new tools against organized crime, but the most effective criminal prosecution tools — RICO, drug trafficking statutes, the Kingpin Act — were already available and are what DOJ actually uses for major cases. The genuinely new authorities are primarily immigration enforcement tools that generate large statistics (85,000 watchlist additions, 10,000 “blocked”) through definitional reclassification rather than new intelligence or enforcement capability. Second, the designation has not changed the cartels — Control Risks’ one-year assessment is unambiguous on this point. What it changed is the legal environment for everyone else: asylum seekers face new inadmissibility bars, legitimate businesses face terrorism-finance liability, and U.S.-Mexico bilateral relations experienced significant friction. Third, characterizing all 15 organizations as “major Latin American cartels” overstates the case — the group includes street gangs, local affiliates, and at least one entity whose existence as a formal organization is contested.

The claim’s deepest problem, however, is structural. This is the sixth separate “win” harvested from a single executive order. Items 19, 30, 36, 48, and 62 already claimed credit for the downstream effects of these designations. Item 173 now claims credit for the designations themselves. The administration has generated six list entries from one policy action — an executive order signed on its first day in office.

The Bottom Line

The claim is factually accurate: more than ten Latin American criminal organizations were designated as terrorist organizations, and U.S. counterterror authorities were expanded. This should be acknowledged. The designations are legally real, the material support prohibition has real teeth, and the sanctions authorities create genuine consequences for cartel-linked financial activity.

But the claim is misleading in its framing. The “expanded counterterror authorities” that matter most for criminal prosecution were already available through existing law. What the designation primarily expanded was the government’s ability to use immigration enforcement and intelligence reclassification tools against a much broader population — generating impressive numbers while the cartels themselves, by Control Risks’ assessment, remain unchanged. The designation strained the U.S.-Mexico relationship without consultation, created collateral damage for asylum seekers and legitimate businesses, and has been repeatedly condemned by international human rights experts. Most significantly, this is the sixth time the “365 wins” list counts the effects of a single Day One executive order. The policy action is real; the six-fold list inflation is not.

Cross-References

• Item #19: “Blocked more than 10,000 individuals with narcoterrorism or cartel ties” — downstream screening results from the watchlist expansion enabled by these designations
• Item #30: “Invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport brutal Tren de Aragua gang members” — used the FTO designation as legal foundation for AEA invocation
• Item #36: “Added 85,000 new identities to the NCTC’s terrorist database” — the watchlist expansion that the designations required
• Item #48: “Imposed crippling sanctions on some of the world’s most deadly cartels” — the SDGT/sanctions dimension of the same designations
• Item #62: “Dismantled Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and other transnational gang-related criminal networks by designating cartels as terrorist organizations” — claimed the same designation “dismantled” organizations still described as operational by every agency
• Item #158: “Authorized lethal U.S. strikes on narcoterrorist vessels” — the FTO designation provided the legal framing for military operations against designated organizations

Sources

U.S. Department of State. “Terrorist Designations of International Cartels.” February 20, 2025. https://www.state.gov/terrorist-designations-of-international-cartels/

U.S. Department of State. “Terrorist Designations of Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif.” May 2, 2025. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/05/terrorist-designations-of-viv-ansanm-and-gran-grif

U.S. Department of State. “Terrorist Designations of Los Choneros and Los Lobos.” September 4, 2025. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/09/terrorist-designations-of-los-choneros-and-los-lobos

U.S. Department of State. “Terrorist Designation of Barrio 18.” September 24, 2025. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/09/terrorist-designation-of-barrio-18

U.S. Department of State. “Terrorist Designations of Cartel de los Soles.” November 24, 2025. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/11/terrorist-designations-of-cartel-de-los-soles

U.S. Department of State. “Terrorist Designations of Clan del Golfo.” December 17, 2025. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/12/terrorist-designations-of-clan-del-golfo

The White House. “Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” Executive Order 14157. January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/designating-cartels-and-other-organizations-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-and-specially-designated-global-terrorists/

Americas Society / Council of the Americas. “Which Cartels and Groups Is Trump Designating as Foreign Terrorist Organizations?” 2025. https://www.as-coa.org/articles/which-cartels-and-groups-trump-designating-foreign-terrorist-organizations

Miller & Chevalier. “Expanding Foreign Terrorist Organization Designations in Latin America.” 2025. https://www.millerchevalier.com/publication/expanding-foreign-terrorist-organization-designations-latin-america

Control Risks. “A Year After Designation of Cartels as Terrorists, What Is the Risk Landscape?” March 11, 2026. https://www.controlrisks.com/our-thinking/insights/a-year-after-designation-of-cartels-as-terrorists

CNN. “Mexico’s Sheinbaum vows to protect national sovereignty as US cracks down on cartels.” February 20, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/americas/mexico-national-sovereignty-sheinbaum-intl-latam

CNN. “Is the US targeting a Venezuelan cartel that may not technically exist?” November 17, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/17/americas/venezuela-cartel-de-los-soles-fto-latam-intl

CLINIC. “Frequently Asked Questions on the Designation of New Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Its Impact on Asylum Seekers.” 2025. https://www.cliniclegal.org/resources/asylum-and-refugee-law/frequently-asked-questions-designation-new-foreign-terrorist

CSIS. “When Crime Becomes Terror: Rethinking the FTO Designation.” 2025. https://www.csis.org/analysis/when-crime-becomes-terror-rethinking-fto-designation

Brennan Center for Justice. “The Dangerous Sweep of Trump’s Plan to Designate Cartels as Terrorist Organizations.” 2025. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/dangerous-sweep-trumps-plan-designate-cartels-terrorist-organizations

Federal Register. “Foreign Terrorist Organization Designations of Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha, Cartel de Sinaloa, et al.” February 20, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/20/2025-02873/foreign-terrorist-organization-designations-of-tren-de-aragua-mara-salvatrucha-cartel-de-sinaloa

Congressional Research Service. “Designating Cartels and Other Criminal Organizations as Foreign Terrorists: Recent Developments.” 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN11205