WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - National Security Matters: What is a Foreign Terrorist Organization?

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

In the first 24 hours of his presidency, Trump signed a number of executive orders, one of which designated cartels and transnational criminal gangs as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).  Why did he do this? What does it mean? How will it change policy going forward? Listen and find out.  

Hello and welcome to National Security Matters, where we discuss topics of U.S. foreign policy, national security, and the different organizations involved with both. I'm your host, Malia Tibito. Today we're covering Trump's executive order, which designated cartels and transnational criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, commonly abbreviated as FTOs. Questions we'll be asking today are, what does this mean, why are we making this change, and how will it affect efforts to commonplace? both terrorism and gang violence. The technical definition of terrorism involves the premeditated violence against civilians to serve some specific political agenda. Per Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, an FTO, is an overseas organization which engages in or retains the capability to engage in terrorist activities and threatens the security of American citizens, the nation, or the nation's economic interests. seems that Trump has his own three specific criteria that he is listed in this executive order.

The first being the interaction and cooperation between terrorist and criminal organizations. An example of this would be the mutually beneficial relationship between Hezbollah and the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas. The second reason that Trump gave for designating cartels as FTOs is their change in strategy, which is, quote, characteristic of entities engaged in insatiated. insurgency and asymmetric warfare. The third reason Trump gives is the infiltration into foreign governments across the Western Hemisphere, which is basically corruption, bribery, and extortion. The whole reasoning outlined in this executive order seems to boil down to, you cooperate with terrorists, you act like terrorists, boom, you're now terrorists. No specific cartels have been named yet, but two Latin American criminal organizations were specifically mentioned in the document. the Tren de Aragua, which is infamous for its involvement in Aurora, Arizona, and La Mara

Salvatrucho, which is MS-13. This has not been the first time that anyone proposed to change the cartel designation. In 2023, Texas Representative Chip Roy advocated the same idea in a bill where he petitioned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to designate the Sinaloa Cartel, the Cartel of Calaisca Nueva generation and los Zetas be declared as FTO. Trump halted these plans in cooperation with then Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Now under the leadership of Claudius Shinebaum, Mexico has taken a more antagonistic role against the U.S. and Trump has already signed the executive order.

Moving forward, what is this designation going to look like? Mark Rubio, the new Secretary of State, is going to meet with heads of national security. They're going to discuss designations, write a report, and then it's going to be submitted to Congress. And within seven days of that, Congress will have to review that and vote. And the ones that are confirmed will be published on the website of the State Department. As for real-world implications, any organization or individual who provides material resources, which encompasses everything except transportation and medical supplies, or specialized knowledge, as a strategy, knowledge, and special topics, or training can be prosecuted by the U.S. government.

Even if it is a case of extortion, which is a very slippery situation, assets can be frozen, property seized, and any individual company that knowingly makes a transaction where the FTO will be prosecuted. The matter of direct military confrontation and fighting against cartels is completely different and it will require different government action. What we should be wary of is the reaction or preemptive action from numerous cartels. Even with their many differences, one thing they do have in common is that they are all extremely violent. Their machine guns, rockets, and specialization in urban combat means that they are, you. uniquely prepared to go up against military and law enforcement, and they have on multiple occasions. Cartels and these criminal organizations should not be underestimated.

This has been National Security Matters with Malia Thibodeau. Join me next week where we'll talk about Trump's proposal to buy Greenland on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.