DISINFO: The US may designate drug cartels as terrorist organisation to have an excuse for military control over Mexico
SUMMARY
Donald Trump may designate Mexico’s drug cartels as terrorist organisations because that may open the door for an intervention in the country. The US is trying to find any excuse to have military control over the Mexican territory.
RESPONSE
No evidence is provided to support this claim. The designation would be aimed at disrupting their finances through the imposition of U.S. sanctions, and would not directly give the United States authority for military operations in Mexico. US president Donald Trump said he was temporarily holding off the designation at the request of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This is part of a recurrent Russian disinformation narrative about constant US plots to undermine Latin American governments. You can see many examples in our database, such as an alleged CIA-led Twitter campaign and a hybrid war in Bolivia, the engineering of blackouts all over Latin America, the promotion of secessionism in Mexico or Venezuela, the training of Venezuelan exiles in Guyana for military operations inside the country or preparations for a military intervention in that country after forcing Brazil to join NATO.