Friday, February 14, 2025

Joining US, Canada designates Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations

As part of the border security plan it negotiated with the United States on Monday, Canada will designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, prompting criticism from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Seeking to avoid U.S. tariffs on Canadian exports, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said he will implement a CAD 1.3 billion (US $900 million) border security plan and launch a joint task force with the United States to combat organized crime, in addition to labeling Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.

Trump and Trudeau
Friends again? For the next month, at least. (@JustinTrudeau/X)

Sheinbaum took exception to Trudeau’s announcement concerning Mexican cartels during her Tuesday morning press conference.

“We don’t believe that the terrorist designation is helpful,” she said. “There are other forms of cooperation and coordination with respect to our sovereignty that would better assist in combating the fentanyl crisis in the United States.”

Mexico also took steps this week to address its role in the fentanyl crisis in the United States where approximately 107,000 people lost their lives to a drug overdose in 2023.

Peter Navarro, senior trade adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, lauded Mexico’s efforts to crack down on the influx of fentanyl into the United States, and said that Canada had started to understand that it needed to do more.

“Canada is making new commitments to appoint a Fentanyl Czar, we will list cartels as terrorists, ensure 24/7 eyes on the border, and launch a Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl, and money laundering,” Trudeau wrote in a post on X. The Canadian prime minister also signed a new US $200 million intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl.

Trudeau’s action against drug gangs follows in the footsteps of the U.S. president who, on Jan. 20, signed an Executive Order designating cartels and other organizations as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations and specially designated global terrorists.”

According to the news agency Reuters, Navarro said that Mexican cartels have been expanding rapidly in Canada, turning Canada into “a leading source of small, duty-free shipments of drugs. 

In addition, Navarro said, Canada must address visa issues that have allowed people on the “terrorism watchlist” to enter the United States.

The actions to bolster border security taken by the respective Mexican and Canadian governments resulted in a one-month delay of the tariffs proposed by Trump.

With reports from El Economista, El Financiero, BNO News, Infobae and Reuters

17 COMMENTS

  1. “There are other forms of cooperation and coordination with respect to our sovereignty that would better assist in combating the fentanyl crisis in the United States.” (I think, well maybe, gosh there MUST be. Aren’t there?)

    • If there were, why didn’t she or AMLO do it? Why wait until Trump threatens to destroy the economies of Canada and Mexico?

  2. Ahh…politicians! Does anyone with half a brain think the cartels are doing anything but laughing? I suspect they are tightening down their operations and strategically planning and probably sitting back waiting for everyone to lose interest which will happen. Will the drugs stop..nada! They will just be harder to get and cost more as the cartels are going to spend more to get them to the market?!?!

  3. Absolutely,
    Do people realize how easy it is to get a powered drug across borders? It can be packed inside articles that come in as commerce. You can fly it in . Even private planes. It can come in via ships and freighters. Some cartels had tunnels. So how can you monitor all that? Well you can’t when all the money is going to the border. Next best thing is investing money into finding where the people making it are. Just like the big Fentanyl bust recently in Mexico.
    Bye, I don’t believe that there has been a big surge in cartels in Canada. You don’t have to be in a cartel to make Fentanyl. While it is extremely dangerous, it is easy to make. Many who don’t make it are part of the people who pass it on to very refined transport system throughout the US. Do you ever wonder how an overdose can happen in northern states.?
    So what I am saying is that I think you are putting too much money in one basket

  4. Navarro is a kook well known to my City of San Diego and nationwide. Never accept anything from him as fact unless independently corroborated.

  5. And how much is the US doing to help its addicted? And why are they using opioids etc? Let’s start with: shipping their jobs and parents jobs overseas, 40 plus years of Reagan and his ‘trickle down economics’, absolute despair, no hope, and more. Address the demand, and supply will disappear. Mexico is a conduit for drugs. Very few use drugs there as they are too busy working to pay for basics. Strong family support, and very little despair despite a lower standard of living. Oh, and it has a thinking Presidenta, not an openly racist, orange-faced buffoon.
    And to the brain trust in Canada…did you not already suggest that Mexico be evicted from the USMCA when Trump stared the threats before he became president? How to be a good partner in the face of a bully with 1/2 a brain!
    Canada, my country, deserves this wake-up call. Maybe some less-dim lights will emerge from the complacent elites who have run the country for most of the past 30 years.Heaven help us all

  6. They are terrorist’s. Excluding the drugs, Look at what is done to Avocado Farmers, Taxi Drivers, Bus Drivers, Oil Pipelines, And any company or person that is prosperous is subject to the strong arm of the Cartels. No different than the Mafias of the world, just a different name. The Mexican Cartels terrorize their own people more than they terrorize the USA or Canada, but it is the drugs that have a negative impact and get the attention. Sure there is a lot that USA and Canada could have done over the years to reduce the use of drugs in their societies and there is a lot they should do now. On the gun supply side of this, The suppliers and mfg of guns should be considered Terrorists as well. I see little difference between the supply of drugs and the supply of guns. And I like Guns.

  7. This headline is a lie. I am Canadian and I watched the exact news conference pictured LIVE. In both English and French, he actually said any organization profiting from, distributing, or moving illicit drugs will now be label terrorists. The word “Mexican” wasn’t in there at all!!!
    Fix your headline, MND!

  8. Drugs is a US problem! If not cocaine, then crack, or angel dust, or fentanyl. Get rid of fentanyl, and there will be something else. It may come through Mexico, or may not.

    While part of the solution is helping addicts, the big question, bigger than any polititian can or is willing to handle is Why do so many Americans turn to drugs? Deal with the causes, and you will solve the problem.

  9. Again. we Amercians blame not our addicted,not money taken by our border patrol,but always someone else
    As a 25 year visitor to Mexico,there people suffer more from killings by armed with weapons illegal sent over the border esp..thru Texas and it’s fake gun control
    Americans should solve OUR drug problem,by spending some money to help OUR addicts!! Then really. control our Texas border about the free flow of weapons to the cartels!!Mexicans are being killed at 10 times the rate!Oh and look. at who has the biggest crowed prisons in the world!! Bob corkrum

  10. Watch what gets targeted next: foreign remittances from US to Mexico. It’s accepted that a portion of these funds are drug related. When (not if) the US goes after this $5 billion US monthly stream, it’s a serious blow to millions of Mexican families and the entire Mexican banking system will implode (so it has been reported). And how does a depression in Mexico’s economy help the US?

  11. I am a Mexican leaving in Canada. Well, here in Canada, Trudeau allowed the British Columbia government to allow the use of recreational drugs, increasing the abuse by its own residents. There are organized crime groups cooking meth, selling on the streets, and of course, the trade partner next door (USA). Recently there was a crack down to the largest meth lab in the world. So drugs imported to the United States did not only come from Mexico, but from the north of their border.

  12. Admittedly USA has societal problem with drugs but why would a good neighbor facilitate or enable the addiction? Mexican political class knows that if it cooperates with law enforcement, their lives are at risk. Simple.

  13. Trump said he was going to secure the border if he was elected. Why is he asking Canada and Mexico to stop the drugs and illegals from entering the US? That’s his responsibility, not theirs. Obviously he is going to point the finger at Canada and Mexico because he knows he can’t fix the problem. And from what I understand, most of the drugs come through the ports and most of the illegals enter legally but don’t leave when they’re supposed to

  14. America will NOT be a civilized country until it decides to remove the 2nd amendment. America remains a barbaric country, feeding the world with military-style weapons. America and its supreme court should try to read the plain language of the 2nd amendment. Our founding fathers could only think of a one shot musket in a frontier socienty, not Gatling guns to exterminate the American indigenous. Our love affair with guns allows 38,000 Americans to die from street murdersand suicides including 2 mass killings per day. Mass killings are defined as 4 or more persons being shot or killed in a single event. Americans are so numbed to the self-inflicted killings that if there aren’t more than 6 or 7 in one event, it is not even mentioned in the news. Americans have a brutal killing instinct, and we somehow justify it with a 2nd amendment which makes no sense today. We have local police forces, state police, and a national guard in every country and state.

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