The U.S. government has designated two additional Mexican drug cartels, the Juárez Cartel and Los Viagras, as foreign terrorist organizations, expanding a campaign that now covers eight of Mexico's most violent criminal syndicates. The designations, published in the Federal Register on Thursday, mark the latest move in a strategy President Trump launched in February 2025 to apply the terrorism label to Latin American criminal groups and unlock more aggressive tools to dismantle them.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that both organizations either have committed terrorist acts or pose a serious risk of committing acts that threaten U.S. nationals, national security, foreign policy, or the American economy, the Associated Press reported.
The action brings the total number of Mexican cartels carrying the foreign terrorist organization label to eight. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) were designated earlier, along with the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, Cárteles Unidos, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana. Gangs in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, and El Salvador have also received the designation under the Trump administration.
The foreign terrorist organization designation is not symbolic. It gives federal authorities new financial weapons, asset freezes, prohibitions on U.S. citizens doing business with the groups, and broader legal standing for prosecution. Breitbart reported that the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control redesignated both the Juárez Cartel and Los Viagras from drug trafficking organizations to foreign terrorist organizations, a shift that opens the door to more aggressive financial targeting.
Mexican analyst David Saucedo said the designation is key to enabling the United States to take more decisive action along the border.
The legal consequences are already playing out in American courtrooms. The family of slain DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena filed a federal lawsuit against the Sinaloa Cartel under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a lawsuit made possible only because the cartel now carries a terrorism designation. Geneva "Mika" Camarena, Kiki's widow, told the New York Post:
"We are so grateful that President Trump designated the cartels as terrorist organizations, which finally allows my family and me to seek justice."
Kiki Camarena's sister, Myrna Camarena, put a finer point on it:
"Thanks to President Trump's bold action in designating the Sinaloa Cartel as a terrorist organization and getting Mexico to expel one of the men responsible for Kiki's death, we finally have a chance to hold his killers accountable in a United States courtroom."
The Camarena case illustrates the practical difference between treating cartels as criminal enterprises and treating them as terrorist organizations. For decades, American families victimized by cartel violence had no civil legal pathway against these groups. The terrorism designation changed that.
The Juárez Cartel is one of Mexico's oldest trafficking organizations. Founded by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as "El Señor de los Cielos", the cartel built a multimillion-dollar empire in the 1990s by smuggling massive drug shipments via light aircraft. After Carrillo Fuentes died, his brothers and sons took over the operation.
The cartel controls Ciudad Juárez, the border crossing directly opposite El Paso, Texas, one of the busiest and most strategically important ports of entry on the southern border. A faction of the Juárez Cartel is considered responsible for the 2019 massacre that killed nine U.S. citizens, six of them children, from the LeBaron family. That attack drew international outrage and remains a searing example of the cartel's capacity for mass violence against Americans.
The indictment of ten current and former Sinaloa state officials for alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel has already strained U.S.-Mexico relations. Adding the Juárez Cartel to the terrorist list ratchets that pressure higher.
Los Viagras operates in Michoacán, a western Mexican state that has become a patchwork of cartel fiefdoms. The group emerged after the 2013, 2014 armed uprising in which farmers drove out older cartels, only to see new ones fill the vacuum.
Led by Nicolás Sierra Santana, Los Viagras controls territory through extortion that directly affects key U.S. exports, including avocados. The cartel also produces synthetic drugs that it sells to larger trafficking organizations for shipment into the United States.
Sierra Santana faces a federal indictment in the District of Columbia, filed in June 2025, charging him with conspiracy to traffic drugs. The State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, a signal that U.S. authorities consider him a high-value target. Whether he is in custody or still at large remains unclear from available official statements.
Michoacán is already home to several designated terrorist organizations. The CJNG, Sinaloa Cartel partners, Cárteles Unidos, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana all operate in the state. The ongoing cartel violence in Michoacán, including lethal attacks on Mexican law enforcement, underscores why the region remains a focal point of U.S. counter-narcotics strategy.
The expanding list of terrorism designations puts Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's administration in an increasingly difficult position. The indictment of Sinaloa state officials, combined with ongoing controversies about U.S. operations in Mexico, has already tested the bilateral relationship.
Mexico's government has shown little appetite for cooperating with the Trump administration's more aggressive posture. In fact, Mexico has filed criminal complaints with U.S. prosecutors in an effort to block deportation of its own citizens, a move that reflects the deepening friction between the two governments.
Newsmax noted that the action further escalates pressure on Mexico's government amid these ongoing tensions. The Trump administration's willingness to treat cartels the same way the U.S. treats groups like Hezbollah and ISIS, at least in legal classification, sends a message that Washington views the cartel threat as a national security matter, not merely a law enforcement problem.
The distinction matters. Drug trafficking organizations face criminal prosecution. Foreign terrorist organizations face the full weight of U.S. financial sanctions, civil liability under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and broader intelligence and military authorities. The legal complications surrounding cartel leadership, including questions of citizenship and jurisdiction, make the terrorism designation a way to cut through bureaucratic obstacles that have hampered enforcement for years.
The trajectory is unmistakable. In February 2025, the Trump administration designated the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel, both operating along the eastern Texas border, as foreign terrorist organizations. Now the Juárez Cartel and Los Viagras join the list. Eight Mexican cartels carry the label. The broader enforcement campaign extends to money laundering networks that fuel cartel operations.
The Camarena family's widow urged the Trump administration to designate additional cartels, including the Juárez Cartel and La Línea, to allow other victimized families to seek justice. With Thursday's action, at least part of that request has been fulfilled.
Critics of the terrorism label have argued it risks diplomatic fallout with Mexico and could militarize what should remain a law enforcement matter. But the families of nine murdered Americans in 2019, the widow of a tortured DEA agent, and the communities along the border forced to live with cartel violence every day might ask a different question: What exactly were we waiting for?
For decades, Washington treated the cartels as a policing problem and hoped Mexico would handle it. Mexico didn't. The terrorism designation won't end the cartels overnight, but it finally matches the legal framework to the scale of the threat. That's not escalation. That's honesty.