Thiago Rodrigues, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF)
Much of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s address at the opening of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly was expected.
Condemnation of U.S. interventionism against Brazil and Israeli action in the Gaza Strip have long been part of the rhetoric of the veteran leftist leader. So too has been the need to fight global hunger and speak up for global environmental initiatives.
But, besides those expected major themes, Lula’s speech also embarked on new territory, noticeably on the issue of organized crime and terrorism. “It is worrying to equate crime with terrorism,” Lula noted.
That was a direct reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempts to equate Latin American organized crime groups with terrorist organizations.
Such conflation has been part of Trump’s agenda since the very first day of his second administration. On Jan. 20, 2025, he signed an executive order that ordered the inclusion of Latin American organized crime groups on the list of designated terrorist organizations.
As a result, entities like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Ecuador’s Los Choneros, Mexico’s Cartel de Sinaloa and El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha now share space with Boko Haram and the Islamic State group on the State Department’s list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
The association between drug trafficking and terrorism is not new in U.S. foreign policy. In the 1980s, groups like Sendero Luminoso in Peru and the Medellín Cartel in Colombia were classified as “narco-terrorists” because they fought their own governments using weapons funded by cocaine trafficking.
Ronald Reagan’s administration presented narco-terrorism as a serious threat to American safety. He sent the Army to combat international trafficking and exhorted Andean countries to turn their military into anti-narcotics troops.
The policy left a strong legacy in countries like Colombia, Peru and Mexico, where armies were converted into a de facto military super-police.
In the process, they lost the capacity to act as effective national defense forces.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the relationship between drug trafficking and terrorism was updated. Islamic fundamentalist groups like al-Qaida were accused by the U.S. Department of State of financing their operations through heroin and other drug trafficking.
With the support of a frightened society, President George W. Bush’s government built an anti-terrorist legal and institutional framework that gave the state exceptional powers to repress anyone it deemed to be a “terrorist.”
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And in the post-9/11 world, being a “terrorist” held serious consequences in regard to how U.S. authorities could, and would, treat you.
Terrorists were arrested without formal charges. They were tortured and detained in unknown places for an indefinite period of time. Their assets and property were confiscated, their bank accounts interdicted and their resources absorbed by the authorities without accountability.
Today, when Trump extends the classification of “terrorist” to transnational organized crime groups, the tacit understanding is it allows any Latin American accused of international drug dealing to be treated outside the rules of a democratic state of law. That includes to be captured outside the U.S. with no access to any diplomatic aid, to be sent to Guantánamo or to simply disappear.
Since the 1970s, the so-called “war on drugs” has been an instrument of U.S. diplomatic and geopolitical pressure. It was used to blackmail governments in Latin America, align repressive policies with U.S. guidelines and justify the presence of military personnel, intelligence and military bases in the region, among other forms of intervention.
Since 2001, the “war on terror” has served similar purposes around the world, but with little impact in Latin America. Now, the new classification for Latin American criminal organizations synchronizes the “war on drugs” with the “war on terror.”
More than rhetoric, the U.S. State Department’s updated list allows the government to reinforce the interventionism in Latin America at a particularly sensitive time.
The U.S. is facing a serious domestic political crisis and an unprecedented global challenge posed by China’s consistent and vertiginous rise as a world economic and military power.
The Chinese economic and commercial presence in Latin America poses a concrete threat to the hegemony that the U.S. established on the continent.
Brazil and Mexico – the region’s largest economies – are making Trump’s trade pressure instruments, such as tariffs, much less effective than expected.
In this context, Trump has deployed a military naval force near the Venezuelan coast, reactivating accusations that the regime led by Nicolás Maduro is a “narco-state.”
Trump accuses Maduro of being the head of a group called the Cartel de los Soles, supposedly formed by high-ranking military personnel. The only sources claiming that such a cartel exists are the U.S. itself and voices linked to the ultra-right Venezuelan opposition in exile. However, the accusation is serious and influences U.S. public opinion.
In the same vein, the U.S. government has just “decertified” Gustavo Petro’s Colombia from its list of countries partnering Washington’s effort to fight transnational drugs trafficking – a move that could lead to economic sanctions and cuts in credit lines, loans and military aid.
Arguing against this logic of unilateral U.S. action, Lula, in his U.N. address, emphasized multilateral cooperation to combat international drug trafficking. And the focus, in his point of view, must be to go after the economic assets of organized crime groups, and their money laundering strategies.
The mention of money laundering refers to the recent actions taken by the Brazilian Federal Police and other local authorities that uncovered huge money laundering schemes from drug trafficking organizations in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo.
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The scheme was carried out through financial institutions, gas stations, hotels and many other “regular” businesses. The initiatives were considered successful because they led to the arrest and indictment of organized crime financial operators, and not the usual low-level streets dealers – who are invariably poor, and Black.
Lula’s talk of international cooperation likely referred to the inauguration of the Center for International Police Cooperation in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. The center is an initiative to coordinate intelligence efforts in the fight against crimes in the Amazon. It brings together representatives of nine Brazilian states and security forces from eight Pan-Amazon countries – and France, on behalf of French Guiana.
The inclusion of the issue of organized crime in Lula’s speech at the U.N. can be seen as an additional front in his opposition to the government of Trump. Like environmental issues, the issue of organized crime is both an internal and international problem for Brazil.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.(NS)
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