Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador shot back at calls to designate his country's drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) and potentially use military force against them, but Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Newsmax he is not doing enough.
"No. 1: I'd like to work with the president of Mexico in a win-win fashion to free his people from the grips of these cartels that are reigning terror on Mexicans, and I'm insisting that we changed the model that is not working," Graham told Thursday's "Eric Bolling The Balance."
"He came into office, and he wanted to hug these guys. Well, it's not working. He met the mother of one of the most notorious cartel members in 2020.
"So his approach is leading to Americans dying more every year than the entire Vietnam War."
Graham is leading the charge to designate the Mexican drug cartels FTOs amid the scourge of deaths in America caused by fentanyl, a drug that gets sent in from Mexico and relies on products from China.
"The drug cartels make a lot of money — billions of dollars — off the deaths of Americans," Graham continued. "I want to shut them down. The Mexican government is not helping.
"Mexico is a narco-terrorist state run by drug cartels. I want to declare them terrorist organizations under U.S. law. Give the military to go into Mexico through drones and cyberattacks and special forces operations to break their back. And finally, these drug cartels are living large at the expense of Americans; and I want to destroy their lifestyle and change the business model."
Graham gave his condolences to host Eric Bolling, who lost his only child to fentanyl poisoning.
"The idea is to break the cycle that led to your son's death and others by going to the source of the problem — 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl poisoning last year," Graham said. "My condolences to you and your family. It is heartbreaking. We're doing nothing about it."
Graham said he is not seeking to go to war with Mexico, just targeting the drug cartels.
"I'm not talking about invading Mexico. I'm not talking about changing the government of Mexico through military force," he said. "I am talking about adding to the law enforcement model — military force, drones, cyberattacks, special forces operations — to bring these cartels down so they will stop killing Americans through fentanyl poisoning. And the pain you experience, others will not have to experience."
Graham added, "They're not just criminals; they're terrorists."
"These drug cartels are like ISIS and al-Qaida. They're not like the mafia," he said. "They're infiltrating America. They're sending poison into this country, killing more Americans a year then we lost in Vietnam. Every two weeks we have another 9/11 due to drug cartel behavior in Mexico.
"And I also want to go after the China connection. China's providing the precursors to these drugs. So by making the cartels foreign terrorist organizations, you can actually bring prosecutions against Chinese in American courts."
Former Trump administration Attorney General Bill Barr said the FTO designation would not help the problem and only would give migrants a good excuse for asylum claims.
Graham rejected that notion.
"I talked to Bill after the interview," he said. "So here's the concern: If you make drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations, people will use that to try to claim asylum. They already use 'I live in a drug cartel run area' for asylum claims.
"We can write the law so that making their group a foreign terrorist organization doesn't give people individual asylum claims.
"But where I am so insistent that we call them terrorists is, if you're a terrorist organization under U.S. law and people are supplying material support to you — like China — then we have jurisdiction that we don't have today.
"FTO designation allows us to go after China. It will not affect immigration policy. Followed up by the authorization to use force, that's the 1-2 punch."
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