We are in a new day. President Trump’s bold moves against Venezuelan, Colombian, and Mexican drug cartels – all dealers in death – as “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs) is revolutionary and noble. No President – including Reagan, for whom I worked – made the link. The effect will be huge.
As the former Assistant Secretary of State who managed billions in counter-narcotics, police training, and our nation’s largest – armed and unarmed – civilian air wing, this is real history.
What Trump critics do not understand is that President Trump, with Defense, State, and Justice, has refocused Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico – and with them China. By linking drug trafficking to terror, saying the obvious – since we lose 100,000 a year to drugs – he redefined national security.
Back in 2003, my job was crafting and implementing Plan Colombia, while training the Iraqi, Afghan, Kosovo, and Colombian police forces, triangulating aviation, ground, and intelligence assets to chase BOTH drug traffickers – i.e, Colombia’s Cali Cartel – and terrorists, like FARC and Taliban.
We were, at that time, highly effective – putting Colombia’s drug traffickers away, training the Iraqi, Afghan, Kosovar, Colombian, and 65 other police forces. We managed 250 airplanes and helicopters around the world, brought costs down, fired bureaucrats and contractors, and pushed effectiveness way up. We went from an operational readiness rate of 60 percent to 85 percent.
We worked with Defense, Justice, and our intelligence community to chase terrorists, get Colombian hostages home, and put terror groups like FARC, ELN, AUC, and Peru’s “Shining Path” out of business. But no president ever did what Trump has done, directly linking drugs and terror.
In 2003, my first book was entitled “Narcotics and Terrorism” (Chelsea Press), and it amounted to a legal, moral, and fact-based plea to conform US policies to reality, acknowledge that those trafficking drugs – killing millions in the US – use that money to push terror, while inflicting terror.
President Trump is the first president to see the link, legally recognize it, and then operationalize it. While Reagan and George HW Bush worked against drugs and terror, the law is now different – allowing us to treat drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, to hit, sink, and prosecute them.
Snatching Venezuela’s narco-trafficker-in-chief, former President Maduro, was a clean, legally and operationally tight law enforcement action, better than the 1989 snatch – also for prosecution in US courts – of then-President of Panama, Manuel Noriega. Maduro was a nexus of drugs and terror.
President Trump’s candid, clear, focused linkage of international drug cartels with BOTH the distribution of terror (killing tens of thousands) and a profit machine for terror is unprecedented.
Where will it lead? The answer is predictable and encouraging. Building on regional “shoot down” policies (in place for 30 years) and the USCG policy of shooting out drug boat engines (in place for 25 years) – based on precise, cued intelligence – we should see deterrence at work.
Just as we see fewer border crossers since he has created deterrence at the southern border, we will see fewer drug boats and other shipments from south and central America to the US, and – more broadly – China will begin to reevaluate the wisdom of shipping fentanyl and precursor drugs to Mexico and the US, and Mexico will itself reevaluate the wisdom of going light on traffickers.
Bottom line: A turn in the road has occurred. It has taken 25 years to get here, but we are here. Drug trafficking cartels, which terrorize, deal death, and fund terror globally, are reeling. Thank you, President Trump, for calling a spade a spade and leaning into deterrence. We are in a new day.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
RBC, good article for explaining the plan that the President Trump and his administration are using.
I noted your recent email from the dark hours in Lewiston, Maine about the ICE coming to your state. Your current governor will continue to impede true justice for illegal criminals in your state. I pray that things will not be as violent as what has happened in MN.
This linking of the despicable drug cartels. and the foreign terrorist organizations is something that should be given recognition ,and it should be Big Time recognition . This matter will be in favor of bringing victory to good over evil on many levels .Praise for the good work you did RBC – all of that effort certainly helped to make for better National Security then and now.. With these improvements it sure enough is a new day , a better day than other previous days that came up short without this strategy . This recognition sends the message that there are Plenty of Americans around who believe in living according to Principles and have the strength, courage, and wisdom to take a stand for what is right.. In the spirit of the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence – And in support of this Declaration ,with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred Honor.
When will politicians get off their high horses and drive through our country roads in the small towns and villages just to see the scourge that methamphetamine and crack cocaine is? The users aren’t hard to identify. Crime statistics will also bear this out. My wife and I RV full time and really like the back country and we see this all to often.
We as Americans can be so thankful for our great President Trump. What the earlier law enforcers attempted to get done, this president is fervent and fearless in his determination to save lives in his charge, and to bring immediate justice to those who would bring killer drugs into our country.
We used to be a two-party country, where both democrats and republicans worked together to be sure Americans were represented and protected. Now we’re stuck with division like we have never known before. Thank God, for this President, who in spite of being shot at and prosecuted, still stands tall for we the people.
AMAC is deleting comments that contradict the view of the authors of these articles.
Have you hear of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution?
The aging Baby Boomers are under a delusion that the US they grew-up in was/is so sacred that it can do no wrong. That US is no longer in existence and has been replaced by a cabal, moistly consisting of z10n!st joos who determine the US foreign policy that, in turn, result in more wars leaving our children, grand children and all future generation to bare the unserviceable debt.
In 1996, whistle-blower Gary Webb exposed how the CIA hired drug traffickers to sell massive amounts of cocaine in the United States in order to raise untraceable funds to finance a terrorist organization that was trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
These large shipments of cocaine ultimately found its way to inside the US via local drug dealers and sparked the crack epidemy that decimated the inner cities during the 90’s.
But the main stream media vilified Webb and destroyed his career which also destroyed his marriage. But he refused to back down.
In 2004 he was found dead with two bullet wounds in his head. His death was ruled a suicide. This man literally lost everything to give us a glimpse of the truth. We shall always remember him and be grateful for what he stood for.