Are Mexico's Cartels Terrorists?
How an official U.S. designation could backfire.
By LEÓN KRAUZE
NOV 27, 20191:31 PM
On Tuesday, during an interview with Bill O’Reilly, President Donald Trump confirmed he will designate Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). “I’ve been working on that for the last 90 days”, Trump told O’Reilly. “Designation is not that easy. You have to go through a process, and we are well into that process.”
Although it is not yet official, Trump’s decision is not entirely unexpected. Republican members of Congress have been pursuing the designation for years. In 2011, Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul tried to introduce legislation on the matter. McCaul failed, but the issue persisted. Early this year, two Republican congressmen, Chip Roy and Mark Green, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again calling for the formal FTO designation for the cartels. A couple of weeks later, Trump told Breitbart he was “very seriously” considering the resolution. On Tuesday he told O’Reilly he would “absolutely” proceed.
Mexican officials are having none of it. Foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard, who led the negotiating team that averted Trump’s tariff threats last summer, immediately pushed back. “Mexico will not allow any action that violates our national sovereignty,” Ebrard tweeted. “We shall be firm. Cooperation should be based on mutual respect.” Mexico’s Senate majority leader, Ricardo Monreal, joined in, calling Trump’s suggestion “inadmissible.” Congresswoman Gabriela Cuevas accused Trump of playing politics with Mexico’s national security. “Mexico is not your electoral platform.” Cuevas tweeted.
But Trump’s announcement did not face universal animosity in Mexico. In fact, some of the country’s most recent victims of cartel violence have been hoping for precisely this kind of step. The Mexican American Mormon fundamentalist LeBaron family, who earlier this month saw six children and three women murdered and eight others badly wounded in northern Mexico at the hands of a still-unidentified group of armed men likely related to a local cartel, recently created a formal petition to the White House asking Trump to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations.
More:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/cartels-terrorists-mexico-lebaron-trump.html
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