Trump vows to launch anti-drug ad campaign, designate Mexican cartels as terrorists By Reuters

By Alexandra Ulmer

PHOENIX, Arizona (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday he would launch a new anti-drug ad campaign to show the physical effects of taking drugs such as fentanyl and repeated his threat to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

“We’re going to advertise how bad drugs are for you. They ruin your appearance, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin, they ruin your teeth,” Trump said at a conference of the conservative group Turning Point in Phoenix, Arizona. .

Trump gave few concrete details about the ad campaign that he had not previously mentioned and likened it to running a political campaign. He said his administration will spend “a lot of money” on the program, but it will be a “relatively very small amount.”

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for more information.

Trump’s plan is reminiscent of the anti-drug “Just Say No” campaign that Republican former First Lady Nancy Reagan ran in the 1980s to encourage young Americans to reject drugs.

Between 50,000 and 60,000 Americans are expected to die from synthetic opioid overdoses this year; Many of these are caused by using fentanyl or similar drugs.

The fentanyl crisis has featured heavily in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, although synthetic opioid deaths more than doubled during his 2017-2021 administration.

Trump on Sunday also revived his campaign promise to designate Mexico’s drug cartels as terrorist groups.

“I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” Trump said.

While in office in 2019, Trump shelved such a plan at the request of then-Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said the United States wanted cooperation in the fight against drug gangs, not intervention.

Some U.S. officials had privately expressed concern that the measure could harm relations with Mexico and hinder the Mexican government’s fight against drug trafficking.

Trump’s official election platform says that when he takes office, he will order the Pentagon to use “special forces, cyberwarfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”