Donald Trump says the US will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organisations, weeks after the massacre of three women and six children near the border. Photo / AP
Donald Trump says the US will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organisations, weeks after the massacre of three women and six children near the border. Photo / AP
US President Donald Trump says he will soon designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organisations.
The move, which comes weeks after the massacre of three women and six children on their way to a wedding in northern Mexico, will give the US sweeping new powers to effectively deal with the threat.
It's believed a drug cartel called La Linea was responsible for attack on the three Mormon families travelling in separate SUVs, reports News.com.au.
Eight other children managed to escape the massacre, six of them wounded.
There have been growing calls for the US government to make the official designation amid the chaos south of the border.
Mexican authorities appear increasingly powerless against the heavily armed cartels.
Three women and six children were killed on their way to a wedding earlier this month. Photo / Getty Images
Mr Trump revealed his plan in an interview with former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday.
"One of the things that you've said to me is that if another country murdered 100,000 Americans with guns we would go to war with that country," O'Reilly said.
"Yet the Mexican drug cartels kill more than 100,000 Americans every year by the importation of dangerous narcotics."
The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion Mexican drug cartel. Photo / Supplied
He asked, "Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them with drones and things like that?"
Mr Trump said, "I don't want to say what I am going to do, but they will be designated."
Mr Trump said he had already offered Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador "to let us go in and clean it out and he so far has rejected the offer".
"I like the President very much, I actually get along with this President much, much better than the previous President, and in theory this President has socialistic tendencies but I think he's a very good man," he said.
"But at some point something has to be done. Look, we are losing 100,000 people a year to what is happening and what is coming through (from) Mexico. They have unlimited money, the cartels, because it's drug money and human trafficking money."
He added, "We're losing 100,000 people, now multiply that times 10 the families that are destroyed. It is a very, very sad situation. Something's going to have to be done."
Members of local Mormon communities mourn victims of the massacre. Photo / Getty Images
O'Reilly pressed, "So you are going to designate the Mexican cartels as terror groups?"
Mr Trump replied, "Yeah, I will be. I will be designating (them), absolutely. 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."
O'Reilly said, "And wait to see, they'll attack you for doing that."
Mr Trump said, "I don't care, I'm attacked on everything."
Donald Trump says 'we are well into' the process of designation. Photo / AP
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.
Mexico's government did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Mexico's foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said on Monday he did not expect the US to make such a move.
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".
