Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, lauded the Trump administration for designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, telling Newsmax on Thursday that it's now time to do what's necessary to knock them out.
Roy joined "Rob Schmitt Tonight" hours after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned the Trump administration against any kind of invasion targeting the cartels.
The eight Latin American drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations include Mexican gangs such as the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels — two of the country's most powerful and violent criminal organizations.
"Well, first of all, President Trump is right to take them on. He's right to designate them as terrorist organizations," Roy said.
"And it's important that the president make this clear: We can now use special tools, and now we can go after them the way we need to go after them."
Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in the White House last month saying that the cartels "constitute a national security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime."
Border czar Tom Homan told Newsmax earlier this week that there are active discussions about striking the cartels, which would have to happen in conjunction with the Mexican government.
"But there's already been incidents, Rob. There was already gunfire there; was happening down at the border, shooting across into Texas with our own Border Patrol being down there taking fire," Roy told host Rob Schmitt.
"And we just had the embassy saying, 'Hey, Americans, avoid being anywhere around the northern Mexican border because of the danger that are posed by cartels.'
"So we've got to address it as the threat that it is. I called on that, as you noted, in 2019. And God bless President Trump and [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio for now doing it. Now, we need to go take the steps necessary to knock out the cartels," he said.
Information from Agence France-Presse was used in this report.
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