The U.S. State Department is moving to designate Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa Cartel and six other Latin American drug cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, according to an unpublished notice in the Federal Register posted Wednesday.
The notice, which was issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and set to be officially published Thursday, suggests these groups have threatened the country’s defense, international relations or economic interests.
Many of these cartels — including Tren de Aragua and Sinaloa — have been engines for transnational drug trade that inundated some swaths of the country with illicit fentanyl, cocaine and other drugs. Some of these groups, like the Cartel del Golfo, have also been responsible for migrant smuggling, which the Trump administration has aimed to clamp down on.
This designation allows the U.S. to impose financial sanctions on these groups and people connected to them, and cooperate with allies to cull cartels. It also allows the U.S. to declare members of these groups as “inadmissible” to the country and ineligible for immigration benefits.
It’s not immediately clear how far these sanctions might go — or who they may target. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The move follows President Donald Trump’s latest efforts to crack down on cartels. On Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order that established a pipeline for cartels and other international groups that “constitute[d] a national security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime” to be labeled as global terrorists.
These moves could expose countries like El Salvador — which the U.S. aims to collaborate with on countermigration, but have also been accused of having dealings with gangs — to terror charges and restrict their cooperation with the U.S.
The Trump administration has looked to target cartels since his first term, though he held off on those plans at the request of then-Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he wanted collaboration with the U.S. to combat drug gangs.
“All necessary work has been completed to declare Mexican Cartels terrorist organizations,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2019, now rebranded as X. “However, at the request of a man who I like and respect, and has worked so well with us, President Andres Manuel @lopezobrador we will temporarily hold off this designation and step up our joint efforts to deal decisively with these vicious and ever-growing organizations!”
A reenergized Trump administration has looked to swiftly renew those efforts in his first month. Trump has said one of his priorities is securing the U.S.-Mexico border and rooting out the cartels which have collected billions of dollars through illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
“They are the most powerful force on the ground,” Rubio said on a podcast with Megyn Kelly last month, “and they are plowing into the United States.”
Earlier this month, Trump threatened to impose steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada, two of the country’s largest trade partners, citing the international drug trade. Foes of the tariffs — and even Trump himself — suggested the tariffs were not actually about drugs but about the balance of global trade.
Trump temporarily suspended these hikes after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed to bolster border and crime enforcement.