Trump signs counterterrorism strategy targeting drug cartels, left-wing groups

President Donald Trump signed a new 16-page United States Counterterrorism Strategy on 6 May that places the neutralisation of drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere at the centre of American counterterrorism operations, the first such strategy of his second term.

The strategy, led by National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka, identifies four threat categories: narcoterrorists and transnational gangs, legacy Islamist jihadist groups, violent left-wing extremists including anarchists and anti-fascists, and the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by non-state actors. “This is America First counterterrorism,” Gorka told reporters on a preview call on 7 May, describing the document as “a framework of action and strength driven by the principle that America is our homeland and must be protected.”

The document treats drug cartels not as law-enforcement targets but as foreign terrorist organisations whose logistics and finances can be attacked directly, breaking with the traditional division between counter-narcotics and counterterrorism missions that has governed US policy since the 1980s. It commits to “incapacitating cartel operations until these groups are incapable of bringing their drugs, their members and their traffic victims into the United States,” Gorka said in remarks reported by Scripps News. The administration intends to use Foreign Terrorist Organization designations to “strangle the commercial and logistic sinews of their lethal organisations,” he added.

Gorka demurred when asked whether new FTO designations were imminent ahead of Trump’s expected meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva later in the week. Brazil has historically resisted external classification of its domestic criminal groups as terrorist organisations, and any move to designate a Brazilian faction would risk a diplomatic breach with Brasilia at a moment when Washington is also seeking Latin American cooperation on migration and trade.

The strategy reserves some of its strongest language for Europe, which the document describes as an “incubator” for terrorism fuelled by mass migration. “It is clear to all that well-organised hostile groups exploit open borders and related globalist ideals. The more these alien cultures grow, and the longer current European policies persist, the more terrorism is guaranteed,” the strategy states.

“As the birthplace of Western culture and values, Europe must act now and halt its willful decline,” the document continues, reprising a theme the administration advanced in an earlier national security strategy that warned of Europe facing “civilisational erasure” from immigration. The language is likely to deepen tensions with European allies over trade, defence spending, and the administration’s demand that NATO members contribute more to Middle East security operations, arguments that have flared repeatedly in recent months.

Burden shifting from allies

The strategy formally replaces what Gorka termed “burden sharing” with “burden shifting,” signalling that Washington expects allied nations to shoulder a far greater share of counterterrorism operations in their regions. “We reject the concept of a global police officer,” Gorka said, according to CBS News. “If you want to be measured as a serious nation, whether it is protecting tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it’s dealing with the Sahel of Africa, then you have to step up.”

The reference to the Strait of Hormuz was pointed. In the same week the strategy was signed, US naval forces were engaging Iranian vessels and intercepting missile and drone fire in the Gulf, while the UAE reported intercepting Iranian projectiles over its territory. Gorka described Iran as “a pariah state” and a “relatively hard target” for terrorist plotting against the US homeland but said the administration did “take the plot seriously on what Iran is intending to do.”

Officials were scheduled to meet with counterterrorism partners from other nations later in the week to press the burden-shifting framework, according to Gorka. He said the administration would also “find and remove the cartel and gang members who were let into our country under the Biden administration,” reprising a recurring Trump campaign theme against lax border enforcement.

Three Islamist groups named

On the Islamist terror front, the strategy calls for the “targeting and destruction of the top five Islamist jihadi groups that have the intent and capabilities” to strike the United States. Gorka specifically named al Qaeda, with emphasis on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and ISIS, particularly its Khorasan Province affiliate in Afghanistan. He also named the Muslim Brotherhood, describing it as the “ancestor of all modern jihadist groups,” a designation that has been a subject of internal administration debate since Trump’s first term.

The strategy pledges that “our counterterrorism operations will be executed apolitically and founded upon reality based threat assessments” and that “our counterterrorism powers will not be used to target our fellow Americans who simply disagree with us.” It also pledges that the administration “will not permit the weaponization of America’s unparalleled CT capabilities for partisan purposes and in contravention of every American’s God-given rights,” language that appeared to address long-running Republican allegations that the intelligence community was politicised under the Biden administration.

Left-wing groups as a new threat category

The most significant doctrinal departure is the inclusion of “violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists” as a formal counterterrorism category, alongside language targeting “violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist, such as antifa.” Gorka described this as the “greatest departure from previous counterterrorism strategies.”

The strategy specifically invokes the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk “by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies” as justification for the new category. Gorka told reporters that the administration would “use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership” and investigate “foreign state sponsors” of these groups.

The framing has drawn criticism. Representative Bennie G. Thompson, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, released a statement describing the strategy as a political document rather than a serious threat assessment. Data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cited in reporting on the strategy, shows that right-wing extremist attacks accounted for 152 incidents and 112 deaths in the United States over the preceding decade, compared with 35 attacks and 13 deaths attributed to left-wing extremists and 82 deaths from jihadist-inspired attacks.

Gorka acknowledged the asymmetry, stating: “This is a threat we will take very seriously, whether you are right-wing inspired or left-wing inspired.” He argued the strategy’s ideological focus justified the new categorisation regardless of the raw attack frequency. “My contention is that the greatest vulnerability for threat groups, the center of gravity is their ideology,” Gorka said. “We must demoralise. We must degrade and we must delegitimise,” he said.

A fourth category: nuclear terrorism

The strategy creates a “special strategic category” for non-state acquisition and use of nuclear weapons, describing it as “the most dangerous terrorist threat.” Gorka downplayed the specific risk from Iran in this context, calling the country “a pariah state” and noting that “it is hard for them to do anything of significance” against the US homeland directly.

The 16-page document, published on the White House website and DocumentCloud on 6 May, is the administration’s first comprehensive counterterrorism statement since Trump returned to office. The National Security Council has begun briefing foreign counterparts on the burden-shifting provisions, with a first round of allied consultations scheduled for the week following the release.