Analysts say designation would be largely cosmetic as the already illegitimate groups are driven by money, not politics

Mexican drug cartel thugs have hanged bodies from bridges, set fire to crowded buildings and tossed hand grenades into crowds.

But Donald Trump’s decision to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs) has been questioned by experts, who argue that the move’s main impact would be cosmetic – although it might provide a pretext for possible US military incursions.

Tom Long, an international relations lecturer at the University of Warwick, argued that although organised crime groups often use terror tactics to impose control, they cannot be conflated with militants who seek political power.

“Their primary motivation is not to achieve political change – it’s to make money,” said Long. “In order to make money, they corrupt and intimidate political actors and political institutions – but it’s a byproduct of their main objective.”

Mexico has been convulsed by violence for more than a dozen years, sending the homicide rate soaring to record levels.

Strategies to establish the rule of law have eluded three presidents since the then president, Felipe Calderón, declared war on drug cartels in December 2006. Attempts at decapitating the cartels by capturing or killing leaders – the so-called “kingpin strategy” – have only unleashed more violence as underlings fight over the spoils.

Quick guide Mexico's evolving war on drugs Show Hide Calderón sends in the army Mexico’s “war on drugs” began in late 2006 when the president at the time, Felipe Calderón, ordered thousands of troops onto the streets in response to an explosion of horrific violence in his native state of Michoacán. Calderón hoped to smash the drug cartels with his heavily militarized onslaught but the approach was counter-productive and exacted a catastrophic human toll. As Mexico’s military went on the offensive, the body count sky-rocketed to new heights and tens of thousands were forced from their homes, disappeared or killed. Kingpin strategy Simultaneously Calderón also began pursuing the so-called “kingpin strategy” by which authorities sought to decapitate the cartels by targeting their leaders. That policy resulted in some high-profile scalps – notably Arturo Beltrán Leyva who was gunned down by Mexican marines in 2009 – but also did little to bring peace. In fact, many believe such tactics served only to pulverize the world of organized crime, creating even more violence as new, less predictable factions squabbled for their piece of the pie. Under Calderón’s successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, the government’s rhetoric on crime softened as Mexico sought to shed its reputation as the headquarters of some the world’s most murderous mafia groups. But Calderón’s policies largely survived, with authorities targeting prominent cartel leaders such as Sinaloa’s Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. When “El Chapo” was arrested in early 2016, Mexico’s president bragged: “Mission accomplished”. But the violence went on. By the time Peña Nieto left office in 2018, Mexico had suffered another record year of murders, with nearly 36,000 people slain. "Hugs not bullets" The leftwing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power in December, promising a dramatic change in tactics. López Obrador, or Amlo as most call him, vowed to attack the social roots of crime, offering vocational training to more than 2.3 million disadvantaged young people at risk of being ensnared by the cartels.

“It will be virtually impossible to achieve peace without justice and [social] welfare,” Amlo said, promising to slash the murder rate from an average of 89 killings per day with his “hugs not bullets” doctrine. Amlo also pledged to chair daily 6am security meetings and create a 60,000 strong "National Guard". But those measures have yet to pay off, with the new security force used mostly to hunt Central American migrants. Mexico now suffers an average of about 96 murders per day, with nearly 29,000 people killed since Amlo took office.

US attempts at offering assistance have also fallen short.

But after the murder of nine women and children from an isolated Mormon community – all of whom were US citizens – calls for action have escalated, along with the specific demand that drug cartels be designated as terrorist organisations.

After Trump said on Tuesday that he would “absolutely” go ahead with the designation, Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, tweeted: “Mexico will not accept any action that signifies a violation of its national sovereignty. We will act firmly … Mutual respect is the base of cooperation.”

How an isolated group of Mormons got caught up in Mexico's cartel wars Read more

The massacre attracted enormous attention to the binational Mormon communities living in a remote corner of the country, and members of the group were outspoken in their calls for Trump to designate the cartels as terrorist organisations.

“If someone is murdering your family, anybody would accept help from wherever they can get it,” Julian LeBarón, an anticrime activist and relative of some of the victims, told the Guardian. “Once it comes down to life and death, I think the moral thing is to choose life.”

There is no doubt that Mexico is in crisis – and that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” policy has failed to rein in the violence. Over three disastrous weeks in October and November, gunmen from various crime factions massacred 13 policemen, slaughtered the Mormons and besieged an entire city to free the son of the Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

But analysts who study Mexican security express skepticism that the terrorism designation would do much good.

The move makes it illegal to provide material support to designated groups – such as Colombia rebel armies, said Brian Phillips, a terrorism expert at the University of Essex.

“But that doesn’t make sense for criminal groups, because they’re already seen as illegitimate groups,” he said. “It’s already illegal to buy cocaine from the Sinaloa cartel.”

The kingpin strategy has caused the repeated and violent restructuring of Mexico’s criminal underground. Groups fracture and reform at a dizzying rate, re-establishing territorial control through violence and alliances – a scenario in which any individual terrorism designation would be ineffective and hard to apply.

'US creates monsters': Trump talk of war on Mexico cartels echoes past failures Read more

“Organised crime in Mexico is already tremendously fragmented and disparate, so it’s not clear that tools aimed at hierarchical organizations are going to be effective,” Long said.

Trump’s comments reprise a familiar practice of pummelling Mexico for political purposes: the president launched his 2016 election campaign by describing Mexicans as rapists and robbers and once threatened to send US troops over the border to stop “bad hombres”.

But one unintended consequence of the designation could come at that same frontier, where it could bolster the cases of asylum seekers fleeing cartel violence.

US judges routinely reject asylum claims from those fleeing crime, however violent, but they have traditionally been more sympathetic to people fleeing terrorism, said Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America.

“It reinforces the argument that the group threatening you has national reach – and that the government was less likely to be able to protect you,” Isacson said, adding Trump’s move might end up undermining his own efforts to undercut the US asylum system.