Daily Caller
‘Explore Every Action Necessary’: Here’s How Trump Admin, GOP May Change Fight Against Mexican Cartels
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
“When I am back in the White House, the drug kingpins and vicious traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”
The Trump transition team and congressional Republicans have promised an unprecedented immigration crackdown, which could also include a novel approach to combating drug cartels.
President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration platform includes a number of hardline measures, such as resuming construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, reviving the Remain in Mexico program for asylum seekers, conducting the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and a number of other hawkish proposals. Trump allies and upcoming administration officials have also called on the U.S. to officially designate key drug cartels as terrorist organizations, which would open more resources to combating the crime syndicates that have long sowed chaos at the southern border.
“The drug cartels are waging war on America — and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” then-candidate Trump said in December 2023, and declared that his plan to fight the cartels included designating them as foreign terrorist organizations.
“Millions and millions of families and people are being destroyed,” he continued. “When I am back in the White House, the drug kingpins and vicious traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”
Nearly a year after that announcement was made, Trump is now due to return to the White House for a non-consecutive second term, bringing his proposal for cartels far closer to reality.
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tom Homan — who Trump recently tapped to serve as his immigration czar — declared that he’d like to see cartels be given the terrorist designation, having said in a news interview in November that they have “killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world combined.”
A foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designation by the State Department — which has so far been mostly applied to Islamic terrorist groups that pose a significant threat to American security — would trigger U.S. authorization to freeze financial assets, prohibit entry into the country and prosecute members for supporting terrorism. The proposal itself is not new, as it’s been championed by border hawks over the years.
“What we need to do is make sure that legally we are approaching cartels as the dangerous organizations that they are, and I think an FTO designation is appropriate,” Texas Rep. Chip Roy said to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Roy was an early proponent in the House of Representatives for this action, having introduced legislation in 2019 that called on then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to designate cartels as terrorists. The Texas lawmaker introduced a bill in 2023 that called for the Gulf Cartel, Cartel Del Noreste, Cartel de Sinaloa, and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion to be given the FTO designation.
While the incoming Trump administration appears to be fully on board with this approach, it remains to be seen if it can be done. Trump himself explicitly called for drug cartels to be labeled as terrorists in November 2019 — largely in reaction to the massacre of American Mormons living south of the border by drug lords earlier that month — but those plans never came to fruition in his first term.
The Mexican government has also long opposed the idea of FTO designation for drug cartels, believing the approach to largely be an affront to their national sovereignty.
In a statement to the DCNF, Todd Bensman, who serves as a senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, said he doesn’t “outright oppose the idea” of an FTO designation, but noted that a cartel organization can employ tens of thousands of individuals. For this reason, careful scope would be needed so U.S. officials are not overwhelmed as they carry out their counterterrorism mission.
Roy argued that a specific FTO designation isn’t completely necessary, but some sort of formal action is needed in order to fully take on the threat of these drug cartels.
“We can get hung up with words and designations and whatever,” the Texas lawmaker said. “Alright, if you want to come up with a special designation that’s the equivalent, then so be it.”
“But the bottom line is that we need to designate them as the dangers that they are and then be able to take action with the full tools at our disposal,” Roy continued. “We need to explore every action necessary to stop them.”
On Election Day, Republicans won control of not only the White House and the Senate, but also maintained their majority in the House of Representatives, which will allow the Trump administration to more freely foment its agenda to control illegal immigration and tackle crime emanating south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Roy urged lawmakers to get behind the White House to push these goals over the finish line.
“What we need is the executive branch to act and we need the legislature to give the executive branch the tools necessary to act,” Roy said. “We can’t blink. We need to move now.”
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
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Ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, developers are carving a four-lane highway through protected tracts of the Amazon rainforest to ease travel for attendees.
The highway, one of several infrastructure projects fast-tracked for the summit, is meant to ease congestion for the more than 50,000 attendees expected in November. The state government insists the road is a “sustainable” development with wildlife crossings, bike lanes and solar lighting, but local critics argue it contradicts the very mission of the climate conference, according to the BBC.
“Everything was destroyed,” Claudio Verequete, a local resident whose family depended on the açaí trees that once stood where the road now cuts through the forest, told the BBC. “Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”
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The highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, had been shelved multiple times in the past due to environmental concerns but was revived as part of a broader push to modernize Belém ahead of COP30, according to the outlet. State officials say the city’s transformation will leave a lasting legacy, including an expanded airport, new hotels and an ungraded port to accommodate cruise ships.
Adler Silveira, the Brazilian state of Pará’s infrastructure secretary, defended the highway project in a statement to the BBC, calling it an “important mobility intervention” that will benefit the local population long after the summit ends.
Satellite images of the area appear to show miles of cleared land where dense rainforest once stood. Conservationists warn that beyond immediate deforestation, the road could enable further illegal logging and land speculation, fragmenting ecosystems critical to carbon absorption, the BBC reported.
“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss,” Silvia Sardinha, a wildlife veterinarian at a university near the site of the new highway, told the BBC. “Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”
The annual UN Climate Change Conference gathers world leaders, lawmakers, scientists and industry representatives to negotiate global climate policy. Discussions typically center around greenhouse gas emissions, phasing out fossil fuel, adapting industries to climate benchmarks and enforcing international agreements like the Paris Accord, as well as topics like deforestation. At previous summits, speakers have advocated for policies such as taxing meat products and naming extreme heat events to create greater awareness of temperature changes. Taliban officials from Afghanistan also attended the COP29 in 2024, as UN agencies reportedly considered unlocking funds for the nation to combat climate crises. The COP28 the year prior included a discussion on sustainable yachting.
The Amazon rainforest, previously called the “lungs of the Earth,” now reportedly emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs due to rampant deforestation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Attendees of the 2025 climate summit are expected to include representatives from nearly every UN member state, as well as corporate leaders in the renewable energy industry such as Siemens Gamesa.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, remarked that “it’s a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon,” adding the conference will be “historic and a landmark” in a February press release. The COP30 summit is scheduled for Nov. 10 through Nov. 21.
Business
Ontario Premier Doug Ford Apologizes To Americans After Threatening Energy Price Hike For Millions
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By
Ontario Premier Doug Ford apologized to Americans Tuesday after he suspended a 25% electricity surcharge that he initially said he would be “relentless” in pursuing.
Ford implemented a 25% surcharge on electricity to New York, Michigan and Minnesota on Monday, but quickly rescinded the policy and apologized to Americans on WABC’s “Cats & Cosby” radio show the following day. The tariffs were initially a retaliatory measure against President Donald Trump’s flurry of tariffs against Canada since he assumed office.
Canada is highly dependent on U.S. exports, economists told CNN, and the planned electricity surcharge would likely hurt Canada’s energy industry much more than it would the U.S., although an estimated 1.5 million homes and businesses would have been affected.
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“I want to apologize to the American people. I spent 20 years of my life in the US, in New Jersey, in Chicago. I love the American people,” Ford said. “I absolutely love them … Secretary Lutnick and President Trump are brilliant businesspeople. They are hard negotiators. We need to put this behind us and move forward and build the two strongest countries in the world.”
Initially, Ford had a much more aggressive tone when he instituted the tariffs.
“We will not back down. We will be relentless. I apologize to the American people that President Trump decided to have an unprovoked attack on our country, on families, on jobs, and it’s unacceptable,” Ford said on MSNBC in response to Trump’s hiking of steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump, in turn, threatened to increase the steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada to 50%, with the increase going into effect the next day.
Ford then talked with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, with the premier describing the call as “productive.” Once Ford backed down on his plan to implement the export fees, Trump reversed his planned hike to 50% on steel and aluminum tariffs. Ford is expected to meet with Lutnick Thursday in Washington, D.C.
If a deal is not reached by the April 2 deadline, the tariffs will resume.
Ontario sold around 12 terawatt hours of electricity to America in 2023, with the U.S. being Ontario’s largest energy customer outside Canada. The tariff would have likely added “100$ a month” to the bill of Americans in the affected states, Ford claimed according to CNN.
The U.S. and Canada have entered into a contested debate over trade policies, with Canada announcing an additional $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs on American goods in response to Trump’s initial 25% steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump initially gained concessions from Canada in February, forcing them to aid in curtailing the illegal fentanyl trade in exchange for a pause on a 25% general goods tariff enacted Feb. 1. However, Trump eventually let the pause expire, with the tariff resuming in March.
“Canada is a tariff abuser, and always has been, but the United States is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer,” Trump said on Truth Social Mar. 10.
The Ontario Premier’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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