Criminal cartels in Mexico and gangs in Venezuela posing a major narcotics trafficking and security threat to the United States are being attacked as narco-terrorists under the Trump administration’s new military-backed war on drugs, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest counterdrug threat assessment.
The DEA’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment lists details on six Latin drug cartels with the two criminal gangs, Tren de Aragua and MS-13, as foreign terrorists. The largest drug-runners were identified as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
The groups threaten Americans’ safety, U.S. national interests, and the safety and stability of the Western Hemisphere, the report says.
“Mexican cartels’ production, trafficking, and distribution of powerful illicit synthetic drugs, chiefly fentanyl and methamphetamine, represent a dire threat to public health, the rule of law, and national security in the United States,” the report, published in May, concluded.
President Trump this week declared the United States is now at war with drug cartels, designating them enemy combatants and setting the stage for additional military strikes
U.S. military units conducted a fourth missile strike Friday on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States with enough narcotics to kill up to 50,000 people, Mr. Trump said in posting a video of the attack on Truth Social.
According to the DEA, violent cartels and gangs are driving tens of thousands of drug overdose deaths of Americans yearly, mainly through deadly synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Drug overdose deaths declined 25% in the period from October 2023 to October 2024. A total of 112,910 people died from overdoses in the 12-month period ending October 2023 and 84,076 died between that month and October 2024, the report said.
“Drug overdose deaths are finally decreasing across the country, but too many Americans, especially young Americans, are still dying from poisonings caused by drugs like fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine,” said Acting DEA Administrator Robert Murphy in a foreword to the report made public in May.
“The Sinaloa Cartel, or Cártel de Sinaloa, is one of the world’s most powerful drug cartels and one of the largest producers and traffickers of fentanyl and other illicit drugs to the United States,” the report said.
Last year, authorities in El Paso, Texas, arrested Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada-Garcia, a co-founder and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán-López, a founding member of the Sinaloa Cartel’s Los Chapitos faction, in New Mexico.
Tens of thousands of members and associates of the Sinaloa Cartel have smuggled multi-kilogram shipments of illicit fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana into the U.S. and around the world.
The organization operates covertly using decentralized networks in 40 countries and is expanding into Europe, Asia and Australia.
The cartel operates a vast distribution network through ports of entry in California and Arizona that send drugs to all 50 states, driving drug use and violence, the report said.
A web of illicit drug wholesalers working under the Sinaloa Cartel runs drugs from Mexico to major cities, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami.
The affiliates communicated through social media platforms and encrypted messaging applications in advertising and selling products along with recruiting couriers and new traffickers.
The Sinaloa affiliates then supply local drug dealers and street gangs get illegal drugs into the hands of users, the report said.
The Sinaloa Cartel “is one of the most significant threats to the public health, public safety, and national security of the United States,” the report said.
The cartel buys precursor chemicals from China and India in synthesize deadly synthetic drugs, including fentanyl, in Mexico-based clandestine laboratories.
Pacific coast ports are used to smuggle and import precursor chemicals for cartel laboratories. The lab produces “millions” of illicit fentanyl pills and “thousands” of pounds of illicit fentanyl powder annually.
Regarded as among the world’s most powerful cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel also conducts a range of violent criminal activities that seek to protect drug operations, spread their illicit influence, and increase revenue.
Murder, torture and kidnapping are used by the cartel to intimidate citizens, government officials, and journalists, the report said. Other crimes include money laundering, extortion, theft of petroleum and natural resources, weapons trafficking, human smuggling, prostitution, and illegal wildlife trade.
In targeting cartels, Mr. Trump said in a memo sent to several congressional committees that the U.S. “is in non-international armed conflict with designated terrorist organizations.”
“The president directed these actions consistent with his responsibility to protect Americans and the United States’ interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct foreign relations,” states the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.
The declaration is similar to that issued against terrorist groups such as al Qaeda since 2001 that allows killing drug traffickers as enemy combatants, detaining them without trial and prosecuting them in military tribunals.
The memo defended a Sept. 15 military strike on a vessel said to be carrying drugs and affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.
The two main cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels, remain dominant dangers through extensive procurement, distribution, and financial support networks in Latin America, China, and other locations.
Fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, including methamphetamine, remain the main cause of fatal drug overdose deaths nationwide. Cocaine, heroin, and diverted prescription opioids also contribute, the report said.
Fentanyl is described by DEA as an exceptionally deadly drug that is often pressed into pills resembling legitimate medications and sold to customers or mixed into other drugs, creating added dangers.
Mexican cartel trafficking has fundamentally altered the drug and criminal landscape in North America. Some cartels also have been making fentanyl in what the report said were “super labs” in Canada.
Tren de Aragua, which was targeted in a U.S. strike on a drug boat Sept. 2, was described in the report as a violent criminal organization founded between 2012 and 2013 in north central Venezuela.
Originally a prison gang, the group facilitates the smuggling of thousands of Venezuelan migrants into the United States and then extorts the migrants, forcing them into prostitution or other crimes to pay off their smuggling debts, the DEA said.
TdA members have been linked to crimes including drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, extortion, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, prostitution, organized retail crime, robberies, and document fraud.
The group MS-13, known formally as Mara Salvatrucha is called an extremely violent international criminal gang founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s by El Salvadoran immigrants, the report said.
“The gang is well-established in the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and its numbers have grown to include thousands of members in almost all 50 U.S. states,” the report said.
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this story.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.