President Trump said Tuesday he is planning to designate Mexico-based drug and smuggling cartels as “terrorist” groups.
In an interview with former Newsmax host Bill O’Reilly, Trump said the designation was related to the cartels’ role in human and drug trafficking.
“They will be designated … I have been working on that for the last 90 days,” the president said in an interview with conservative media personality Bill O’Reilly that was posted to his website Tuesday.
“You know, designation is not that easy, you have to go through a process, and we are well into that process,” the president added.
The designation would come following the murder of American Mormons in Mexico earlier this month.
A terrorism designation could empower the president to utilize U.S. special forces to interdict them, something that would not go over well with the Mexican government.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador objected to what he called Trump’s attempt at “interventionism” on Wednesday during a press conference with Mexican reporters.
“Cooperation, yes, intervention, no” Lopez Obrador said in a morning news conference when asked about Trump’s comments.