From Traffickers to Terrorists: Trump Redefines the Battle Against Deadly Drug Gangs
President Trump has drawn a line that no other American leader has dared to etch: the United States, he declared, is engaged in an armed conflict with the drug cartels that poison our people. They are not mere traffickers now, not in his eyes, but terrorist organizations — and their smugglers, his admin told Congress, are to be regarded as unlawful combatants. The notice to lawmakers, obtained by The New York Times, confirmed what Trump himself has hinted at in speeches. It is not rhetoric. It is a formal designation that grants the commander in chief extraordinary wartime powers —