Trump has directed the U.S. military to assist in the fight against Latin American drug cartels.
Trump secretly signed a directive to the Defense Department to begin using military force against cartels the administration has deemed terrorist organizations, The New York Times reported Friday.
The news came a day after it was reported the Trump administration is doubling to $50 million a reward for the arrest of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world's largest narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the U.S. with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
Sources told the Times military officials have started formalizing options for how forces could go after the cartels.
The use of the military outside of a congressionally authorized conflicts could result in critics questioning the potential killing of civilians, even those suspected of criminal activity, the newspaper said.
As of late last month, U.S. troop deployments at the southern border had tripled to 7,600 and include every branch of the military.
In May, Trump said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected his proposal to send U.S. troops to Mexico to help thwart the illegal drug trade because she is fearful of the country's powerful cartels.
The president spoke a day after Sheinbaum confirmed that Trump pressed her in a call last month to accept a bigger role for the U.S. military in combating drug cartels in Mexico.
In April, the administration directed two intelligence agencies to train their satellite surveillance capabilities on the U.S.-Mexico border region as part of a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration and drug cartels.
In March, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned six people and seven companies for alleged money laundering for factions of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, underscoring the group's new designation as a foreign terrorist organization under the Trump administration.
Trump in January signed an executive order saying the U.S. would designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in a move that could push a militarized agenda for the border and Latin America.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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