Trump’s Crackdown on Drug Lords Draws Massive Public Support
A massive majority of American voters – 71 per cent – support the deployment of U.S. military forces to target and dismantle drug cartels in Latin America, including sinking cartel vessels heading towards U.S. shores. That’s according to a new Harvard CAPS–Harris poll, which found that even most Democrats agree such action against drug traffickers is justified.
The party affiliation of the 71 per cent of voters backing the use of military forces to target drug traffickers, is 56 per cent of Democrats, 89 per cent of Republicans, and 67 percent of independents. In the survey, conducted online between October 1 and 2, 2,413 registered US voters participated and the margin of error is 1.99 percent.
71 per cent of American voters support the deployment of US military forces to target and eliminate drug traffickers (Photo: AFP)
President Trump has made taking on the cartels a key focus of his administration. Shortly after reentering the White House in January, the president designated certain cartel groups as foreign terrorist organizations, paving the way for military and law enforcement actions aimed at restoring security on America’s borders and in communities. The designation allows the U.S. government to deploy counterterrorism resources, including financial sanctions and direct military strikes on cartel operations, The Post Millennial reports.
President Trump has emphasised that the move is essential to combat the fentanyl crisis, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives, and has also vowed to dismantle the criminal empires flooding the nation with deadly narcotics.
Speaking at a White House conference on the government’s efforts against organised crime, Trump revealed that over 3,000 members of foreign drug trafficking networks had been arrested by federal authorities in the past month alone. He added that as of September, the Homeland Security Task Force – capable of operating in all 50 U.S. states – had been fully mobilised to target organised criminal groups.
Trump compared the cartels to the „Islamic State of the Americas”, warning that they control vast territories and threaten the stability of entire nations.
Trump: “It should now be clear to the entire world that the cartels are the ISIS of the Western hemisphere.”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 23, 2025
The President also noted that several foreign criminal organisations, now officially designated as terrorist groups, operate within U.S. borders – including MS-13, Tren de Aragua, and Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel. War Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that the U.S. military, having spent decades dismantling terror networks such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, would now employ similar methods to eliminate the drug cartels across the Americas. Summing up Washington’s message to the traffickers, Hegseth declared:
“We will treat you like al-Qaeda — we will find you, uncover your networks, hunt you down, and eliminate you.”
Hegseth pointed to recent naval operations in the Caribbean and the Pacific as proof of America’s new, more forceful strategy, stressing that:
“The U.S. military does not take drug traffickers into custody — it takes them out.”
On Thursday, the War Secretary confirmed that U.S. forces had destroyed another suspected drug-smuggling vessel in Latin American waters just the day before.
Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.
The vessel was known by our… pic.twitter.com/lVlw0FLBv4
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) October 24, 2025
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Homeland Security Task Force had seized more than 90 tonnes of narcotics in the past month alone, including 59 tonnes of cocaine.