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The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, announced on Monday the imposition of visa restrictions on 75 individuals identified as family members or close associates of people already sanctioned for their connections to the Sinaloa Cartel.
Rubio announced the measure through his official account on X with a direct message: "The Trump Administration continues to make our nation and region safer and stronger. Today, I am taking steps to impose visa restrictions on 75 individuals who are family members or close associates of people linked to the Sinaloa Cartel sanctioned under E.O. 14059. The State Department will continue to protect Americans from dangerous narco-terrorists and deadly drugs."
The action is based on the Executive Order 14059, originally signed by President Joe Biden in December 2021, which declared a national emergency due to the threat of global illicit drug trafficking and authorized sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act against individuals and networks involved in that trade.
The Trump administration has used this legal framework to consistently expand its actions against the Sinaloa Cartel, which it has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and has classified its leaders as "narco-terrorists."
The strategy of extending visa restrictions to family members and associates of already sanctioned individuals serves as an indirect pressure tool aimed at increasing the social and economic costs for networks of organized crime, beyond just their directly involved members.
This measure adds to other recent actions by the Department of State in the region.
Before the announcement this Monday, travel restrictions had already been imposed on two Mexican officials linked to drug-related corruption, and the United States reviewed a list of several dozen officials from the Morena party for alleged ties to drug trafficking, with potential visa revocations and sanctions from the Treasury.
The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel are responsible for approximately 70% of the fentanyl seized at the southern border of the United States, according to the DEA's 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment, making both organizations central to Washington's anti-narcotics policy.
In July 2025, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, one of the historical leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, was captured and was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York.
The regional offensive also included sanctions from the Treasury Department against the Venezuelan Cartel of the Suns, designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization for facilitating drug trafficking and supporting the Sinaloa Cartel.
In that same context, the United States
The DEA had confiscated more than thirty tons of cocaine related to Maduro, of which nearly seven tons were directly linked to him and his associates.
Rubio has made the fight against Mexican cartels a central focus of his hemispheric foreign policy, systematically linking drug trafficking with terrorism and the national security of Americans.
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