Washington, DC - President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly reviving a plan he floated during his first administration to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, sources suggest.

According to sources who spoke to CNN, Trump is considering moving forward with the designation despite having called off his original plans in 2019 at the request of then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Republican lawmakers have continued to support the idea since Trump left office at the beginning of 2021, citing it as a way for Washington to take more drastic action to limit the flow of illicit drugs and human smuggling.

In March 2023, Republican Congressman Chip Roy introduced a bill to Congress calling for the State Department to "report on the designation of the Gulf Cartel, the Cartel Del Noreste, the Cartel de Sinaloa, and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion as foreign terrorist organizations."

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In December, Trump reiterated his plans to move forward with the terror designations during a speech in Arizona.

"I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations," Trump said. "We’re going to do it immediately and unleash the full power of federal law enforcement, ICE, border patrol."

Labeling Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would give the federal government more powers in what it could do to disrupt their operations. For example, Trump has previously floated the idea of bombing fentanyl labs.

The potential move has raised concerns over Mexico's sovereignty and the diplomatic havoc such incursions could wreak upon US-Mexican relations.

In December, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to Trump's reported plans, declaring that Mexico "will never subordinate ourselves."

"Mexico is a free, sovereign, independent country and we do not accept interference. It is collaboration, it is coordination, but it is not subordination. And we are going to build peace," Sheinbaum said.