Highlights:
1. Chemical warfare, not the fight against drug trafficking. The U.S. government has formally designated fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. Mexican cartels are no longer merely criminal organizations: they are foreign terrorist organizations. The language matters because it triggers legal powers previously reserved for Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State and applies them to drug trafficking.
2. They’re not just after the kingpins: they’re after the entire network. The strategy is explicit: the targets include leadership, financial networks, logistics, and—here comes what they’ll claim is a violation of sovereignty—“the corrupt officials who enable their operations.”
3. They point to a lack of political will. The document states bluntly that transit and source countries—Mexico plays a role in both—have tolerated trafficking due to a “lack of political will to take decisive action.”
4. A single command center with all agencies. The HSTF National Coordination Center was created to integrate the DEA, FBI, DHS, CBP, and the intelligence community into a unified system. Information on cartels designated as terrorists is passed to the NCTC—the same center that coordinates the global fight against terrorism. One file, all tools, zero bureaucratic barriers.
5. They don’t ask for permission: they use all instruments of national power. To put it plainly: “all available diplomatic, intelligence, military, and economic tools.”
Further Reading: