Trump says US will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorists

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (Nov 26) he will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorists over their role in drug and human trafficking.

"They will be designated ... I have been working on that for the last 90 days. You know, designation is not that easy, you have to go through a process, and we are well into that process," Mr Trump said in an interview with conservative media personality Bill O'Reilly that aired on Tuesday.

Once a group is designated as a terrorist organisation, under US law it is illegal for people in the United States to knowingly offer support and its members cannot enter the country and may be deported.

Financial institutions that become aware they have funds connected to the group must block the money and alert the US Treasury Department.

Reacting to the comments from Mr Trump, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said in a tweet that Mexico would never tolerate any move that would violate its national sovereignty.

"We will be firm," Mr Ebrard added.

Earlier this month, Mr Trump, in a tweet, offered to help Mexico :wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth."

The proposal came after nine Americans were killed in an ambush in northern Mexico.

Mexican authorities said they may have been victims of mistaken identity amid confrontations among drug gangs in the area.

Mr Alex LeBaron, a former Mexican congressman and relative of some of the victims, rejected the idea on Twitter of a US "invasion."

"We have already been invaded by terrorist cartels," he wrote. "We demand real coordination between both countries ... both countries are responsible for the rising trade in drugs, weapons and money."

The LeBaron extended family, members of a breakaway Mormon community that settled in northern Mexico decades ago, has often been in conflict with drug traffickers in Chihuahua and victims' relatives said the killers must have known who they were targeting.