The Donald Trump administration rewrote the framework of the United States' post-9/11 counterterrorism policy this year, nearly 25 years after the attacks.
The White House on the 6th (local time) released a 16-page "U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy 2026," naming drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico, as the first target instead of Middle Eastern jihadist groups such as al-Qaida or the Islamic State group (IS). Observers say that, for the first time since 9/11, the center of gravity of U.S. security strategy has effectively shifted from the Middle Eastern deserts to the U.S. southern border.
Sebastian Gorka, the White House counterterrorism coordinator who led the strategy's drafting, explained the change in priorities at a news conference by citing the number of victims. He said, "Far more Americans have died from drugs brought in by the cartels than U.S. service members lost in conflicts around the world since World War II." The numbers back that up. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl-related drug overdose deaths were 72,776 in 2023 and 48,422 in 2024. That means more than 200 Americans died each day because of the single drug fentanyl. The number of fentanyl deaths in the United States in 2023 alone already far exceeded U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam War (about 58,000).
The violence displayed by the cartels has already gone beyond ordinary criminal groups and risen to the level of Middle Eastern terrorists. In a report in January, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said Mexican cartels since 2020 have dropped explosives using commercial drones and evolved toward tactics close to the Taliban and IS, including ambushes using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and brutal acts against civilians. In March 2022, Cartel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas) attacked the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, with gunfire and grenades. In 2023, four Americans were kidnapped in Matamoros and two were killed. Executive Order 14157, which President Trump signed on Jan. 20, stated that "in parts of Mexico, cartels have effectively supplanted administrative and law enforcement functions."
On Feb. 20, the U.S. State Department, citing this accumulation of evidence, designated eight cartels at once as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). They include six Mexican groups—the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Cartel del Noreste, the Gulf Cartel, the New Family Michoacán, and the Cartel Alliance—as well as Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua (TdA) and the El Salvador–origin gang MS-13. The 16-page strategy document officially said the United States, at the national level, will move to cut off these cartels' financing, directly strike drug-running vessels, and mobilize military assets. In Latin American waters, U.S. military strikes on suspected cartel vessels that began in early September have killed 191 people so far.
The second target is the existing Islamist terrorist organizations. The report identified al-Qaida—particularly al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)—and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) around the Iranian Plateau as the biggest Middle Eastern threats with the intent and capability to attack the U.S. homeland. Experts also said that while the Middle East's strategic weight has diminished since the shale revolution, Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities, proxy militias such as Hezbollah, and threats to navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea remain key variables. The State Department, having designated the Muslim Brotherhood's Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon branches as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, left open the possibility of adding other groups.
The third and final pillar is violent left-wing extremists inside the United States. This is the first time a U.S. administration has named left-wing extremists as a core threat in a national counterterrorism strategy. The White House wrote in the report that it would "rapidly identify and disrupt groups with anti-fascist (Antifa), anarchist, and radical pro-transgender ideologies." In an analysis on the 6th, Time weekly cited the general assessment of U.S. law enforcement that Antifa is closer to a decentralized activist network without central leadership, interpreting the report as having "pulled ideology and movements themselves into the counterterrorism target set, beyond the previous model of dealing with clearly organized terrorist groups." Analysts also said the shift directly touches on civil rights, freedom of expression, and the expansion of intelligence agencies' powers.
The view of Europe through a counterterrorism lens was also revised to reflect the worldview of Trump's second term. While defining Europe as America's most important and long-term counterterror partner, the report also labeled it "a target of terrorism and an incubator of terror threats." It added language that "as heterogeneous cultures spread, and as current European policies continue, the more terrorism is guaranteed." The left-leaning Guardian in the United Kingdom wrote on the 7th that "the United States has pushed NATO allies to put not just defense spending but immigration policy and multiculturalism itself on the security agenda."
Gorka, the counterterrorism coordinator who wrote the report, said at the briefing, "As the president made clear, the United States judges the sincerity of allies by 'what they bring to the table,'" calling for allies to shoulder more of the burden on terrorism.