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US 'Will Temporarily Hold Off' Designating Mexican Drug Cartels As Terrorists - Trump

© AFP 2023US presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves after a joint press conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (out of frame) in Mexico City on August 31, 2016.
US presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves after a joint press conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (out of frame) in Mexico City on August 31, 2016.  - Sputnik International
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US President Donald Trump earlier considered designating as terrorist organizations Mexican drug cartels operating near the US border and reportedly engaging in the human-trafficking of Central American migrants.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador earlier asked his American counterpart to halt a decision to add drug criminals to the US list of terror organizations. Trump said Friday that he would suspend the enactment of his earlier decree.

​The idea of blacklisting Mexican gangs as terrorists was floated last month by Trump after 9 people were killed - members of a Mormon religious group - in an ambush of a convoy in the Mexican state of Sonora, reportedly an active battleground between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug gangs.

After the massacre in Sonora that killed many children, Trump offered Obrador assistance in investigating the killings so as to "ensure the perpetrators face justice”, according to a White House statement.

Earlier, Trump argued in separate statements that US forces were available to "help in cleaning out these monsters" adding that Washington only waited for Mexico's invitation.

In this Feb. 22, 2014 file photo, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, center, is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican navy marines at a hanger in Mexico City, after he was captured overnight in the beach resort town of Mazatlan - Sputnik International
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The proposal to designate Mexican drug cartels - a long burning issue for the Central American nation - as terrorist organizations reportedly raised concerns among Mexican authorities that Washington would deploy forces on Mexican soil, a direct interference in the neighboring country's domestic affairs.

In late November, the Mexican Foreign Ministry declared that it would work to reduce the flow of weapons and cash to criminal gangs across the border with the United States.

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