3:28President Donald Trump waits to welcome Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House, Aug. 8, 2025, in Washington.Jessica Koscielniak/Reuters
President Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to prepare strategies for the potential deployment of U.S. military force against drug cartels classified as terrorist entities, two U.S. officials confirmed to ABC News on Friday.
One official indicated that any potential utilization of U.S. military resources is not imminent.
It is still uncertain what the authorization will entail and what military actions would be deemed as possible options that the U.S. military has been cleared to prepare. Legal questions surrounding such operations are likely to arise.
The New York Times was the first to report that Trump had signed a directive instructing the Pentagon to devise military options against the cartels.
The Pentagon directed all inquiries to the White House. When asked for a statement, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News that "President Trump's primary focus is safeguarding the homeland, which is why he took the decisive action to categorize several cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations."
On Friday, a reporter pressed President Trump on whether he would deploy U.S. forces to Latin America to confront the cartels.
"Well, Latin America has numerous cartels and a significant amount of drugs flowing. So, we want to defend our nation. We must defend our nation. We haven't been doing it for four years. And we cherish this country just as they love theirs. We need to protect our country," Trump stated.
"So, we're engaged in a challenging situation, but we will have more to discuss regarding that soon," he added.
President Donald Trump waits to welcome Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House, Aug. 8, 2025, in Washington.Jessica Koscielniak/Reuters
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday rejected the notion of the U.S. military targeting drug cartels within Mexican borders.
"The United States will not send military forces to Mexico. We collaborate, we coordinate, but there will not be an invasion… that is out of the question," Sheinbaum stated when responding to inquiries about reports on Trump directing the military to prepare options against the cartels.
In February, the Trump administration labeled Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel, MS-13, and other drug cartels as global terrorist organizations following an executive order signed by Trump in January.
During an appearance on EWTN on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that this designation permits the administration to utilize various strategies against the cartels, which he characterized as armed groups akin to terrorist organizations or armies that control territory.
"I can’t say if it has altered their conduct yet, but their actions will need to change in one manner or another," Rubio mentioned in an interview when asked if the terrorist designation had influenced the cartels’ behavior. "However, it enables us to target their operations and utilize other facets of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever … to focus on these groups if the opportunity arises."
"We must begin to regard them as armed terrorist organizations, rather than merely drug trafficking groups," Rubio continued. "Drug trafficking is the form of terrorism they are engaging in."
Some experts assert that the State Department’s foreign terrorist organization designation does not permit military action.
"Legally, the FTO designation alone does not grant authority to use force, despite some misunderstandings regarding this, including within the U.S. government," Brian Finucane, who served as an attorney-adviser at the State Department from 2011 to 2021, told ABC News.
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