EXCLUSIVE: GOP moves to authorize Trump to wage war on cartels through military force

EXCLUSIVE – Congressman Greg Steube, R-Fla., is introducing a resolution today to empower the Trump administration to "take a sledgehammer" to the cartels by authorizing the president to use the "full force of the American military" against nine of the largest migrant criminal groups that have been wreaking havoc on American cities.  

One of the criminal groups included in the resolution is Tren de Aragua – also known as "TdA" – which is an international gang tied to the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley as well as the violent takeover of at least one apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, last year. The group is also suspected of having ties to Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. 

The resolution authorizes President Donald Trump to unleash the American military on Tren de Aragua, MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel and several other gangs, which it says have "violated the territorial integrity of the United States" and present "a clear and evident danger" to the American people.

It states that over 110,000 Americans per year died of opioid overdoses during the height of the border crisis under the Biden administration. It further says that the targeted cartels "engaged in and permitted the occurrence of terrorism, outrages upon personal dignity, and the extrajudicial execution of innocent peoples in the United States."

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"Whereas ensuring the territorial integrity, national sovereignty, and protection of the American people against all enemies, foreign and domestic, is of the utmost responsibilities entrusted upon the Armed Forces," the resolution reads, "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as the President determines necessary and appropriate against the covered cartels, any forces directly coordinated or affiliated with any covered cartel, and any successor organization or forces to any such covered cartel."

This comes after the Department of State – at the direction of an executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office – designated Tren de Aragua and seven other groups as "foreign terrorist organizations."

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The order stated that these groups "present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States," and invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEP) to declare a national emergency to "deal with those threats."

"It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States," read the order.

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Speaking with Fox News Digital, Steube – who is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – explained his resolution, saying, "These are not ragtag bands of low-level lawbreakers but organized criminal enterprises that profit off death and addiction." 

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"We can no longer ignore the deliberate invasion of Mexican drug cartels into our neighborhoods and communities," he said. "Far too many innocent people have suffered at the hands of the cartels." 

"Until such time that the Mexican government finally steps up and squashes the drug cartels who use Mexico as their home base, Congress must give President Trump and Secretary Hegseth the green light to take a sledgehammer to these criminal networks and their supply chains," he went on. "My joint resolution will authorize the Trump administration to use the full force of the American military against the nine largest drug cartels operating out of Mexico."