Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that President Trump had asked leaders of a new coalition of 18 nations across Latin America and the Caribbean to label two dozen crime groups and cartels in the region as terrorist organizations.
Such moves could help provide a public rationale for the U.S. military to conduct strikes on the groups, either on its own or in partnership with the security forces of those countries.
Mr. Trump made his request at a group meeting in New York on Tuesday with leaders and top officials from the countries. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly.
“Obviously, some countries are in the process of doing it,” Mr. Rubio said of the terrorist designations. “Some have already done it. They all have different laws internally as to how they can reach that designation point, but the Shield of the Americas is about defeating these transnational criminal groups.”
The Shield of the Americas is the name of the coalition, which has a total of 19 nations, including the United States, formed to fight drug traffickers. Peru, which Mr. Rubio visited this month, is the latest country to join.
Many of the nations are run by right-wing or conservative governments that have voiced public support for Mr. Trump’s military attacks in Latin America and the Caribbean, including airstrikes on civilian boats that are widely deemed to be extrajudicial killings by legal experts.
Mr. Rubio’s comments, made to reporters in a news conference in New York, confirmed a New York Times article on Tuesday that 14 nations in the coalition had agreed to make a terrorist designation on crime groups at the urging of the Trump administration. Each nation has its own process for doing that, and leaders might need to seek approval from legislative bodies.
The two dozen crime groups have already been designated foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department. That designation gives the U.S. government the power to restrict financial transactions by the groups or their associates, but it does not provide a legal basis for military action.
After The Times published its article on Tuesday, the State Department announced that 14 countries in the coalition and the United States were taking joint action on crime groups, including “sanctions, designations and financial actions.”
The announcement included a list of two dozen crime groups, but two organizations in Colombia were grouped together into one listing.
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