President Donald Trump has signed a new national counter-terrorism strategy, making the fight against drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere a top priority, the White House announced Monday.
Other priorities in the new counterterrorism strategy, published on the White House website, include: Fighting and destroying Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and five other extremist groups; Identify and eliminate political groups with violent tendencies such as anti-n and anarchist ideologies; and prevent non-state actors from acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction.
“We will never allow drug cartels, jihadists, or governments that support them to endanger our citizens,” Trump wrote in the foreword to the strategy paper. Terrorists of any kind can not find safe havens here at home and can not attack us from abroad,” he said, the new U.S. counterterrorism strategy is“A return to common sense and ‘peace through strength. ‘”.
On the same day, Seb Gorka, Senior Director of counter-terrorism at the White House National Security Council, said that the strategy is first aimed at eliminating the“Threat of terrorism” in the Western Hemisphere, “By weakening the operations of drug cartels so that they can no longer bring drugs, members or victims of trafficking into the United States”. Since World War II, far more Americans have been killed by drug cartels bringing drugs to the United States than have been killed in conflicts around the world, Gorka said.
Gorka said administration officials would meet with allies later this week to discuss how to strengthen and implement the new strategy.
Since the beginning of September 2025, the US military has repeatedly attacked the so-called“Drug trafficking vessels” alleged by the US in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific, on November 13, the US announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear. The U.S. government, however, did not release any evidence that its targets were drugged. According to U. S. Media reports, the U. S. military on the so-called“Drug trafficking ship” attack has killed at least 191 people were killed.