By Willie Bestman williebestman3@gmail.com
New York, September 22, 2026 — U.S. President Donald Trump called for members of drug cartels to be “killed, exiled, or detained as enemy combatants” during his address to the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly.
The remarks followed his administration’s recent designation of certain cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Trump said the U.S. military had been authorized to take action against the groups, which he compared to the Islamic State (ISIS).
“The cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere,” Trump declared, accusing them of employing murder, rape, torture, and extortion as tools of terror.
The president described cartel members as “enemies at war with civilization” and argued they should face the same treatment as ISIS fighters. He emphasized that cartel operatives should be “killed, exiled, or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release.”
Trump’s comments underscore his administration’s increasingly hardline approach to drug-trafficking organizations, framing them as national security threats rather than criminal enterprises.
The policy shift reflects Washington’s expanded use of counterterrorism measures against groups it considers destabilizing to regional and global security.
