Fifteen governments across the Americas, including the United States, signed a declaration on Tuesday that labels 24 criminal organizations "transnational narco-terrorist organizations" and puts them under joint sanctions. The targets include Brazil's two largest criminal factions, the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) and the CV (Comando Vermelho). The document was released on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York and answers a direct request from US President Donald Trump.

According to CNN Brasil, the declaration sets out, under each country's laws, asset freezes, immigration and visa restrictions for members, associates and supporters of the groups, and criminal liability for anyone who knowingly provides material support, including logistics. It was signed by Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the United States, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago. It is the first joint action of the Shield of the Americas (Escudo das Américas), an alliance also known as the Coalition of the Americas against Cartels, created to fight drug trafficking on the continent.

For Brazil, the decision lands on the two factions that dominate organized crime at home and already operate in neighboring countries. According to Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil's diplomats were caught by surprise: the foreign ministry, the Itamaraty, had no advance knowledge of the document, released in the afternoon after speeches by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Trump at the General Assembly. The government is still reviewing the text and trying to play down the impact of a decision taken without consulting Brasilia, which does not belong to the bloc.

A direct request from Trump

At a meeting with member states, Trump asked the alliance's nations to "formally designate narco-terrorists as common threats to stability and apply severe sanctions against all 24 foreign terrorist organizations designated by the US". He added, in CNN Brasil's account: "Until I arrived, nobody designated anything. You were on your own. But now you are no longer alone". The countries also announced their intention to jointly ask the Permanent Council of the OAS (Organization of American States) for a meeting of consultation, based on articles 6 and 13 of the Rio Treaty, the hemisphere's mutual defense pact, to discuss collective action at ministerial level.

The alliance began with 12 countries and now counts 19 members, CNN Brasil reports, and works through intelligence sharing and joint military operations modeled on earlier US campaigns against suspected vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay have already allowed US troops on their soil, and other countries are negotiating similar agreements. G1 notes that the bloc gathers governments aligned with Trump, such as Argentina, Chile and El Salvador, and that the fight against cartels was one of the themes of his UN speech.

The political timing

The declaration comes weeks before Brazil's general elections and amid tension between Brasilia and Washington, as Folha notes. One wing of the government, speaking to the newspaper on condition of anonymity, said it was not surprised and sees limited collateral effects, citing the precedent of Argentine President Javier Milei, who had already referred to such groups as narco-terrorists. The real worry, that wing said, is any use of force in the region, which does not depend on the new declaration. Beyond the PCC and the CV, the list includes the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), the Tren de Aragua, Mexico's Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, Colombia's ELN, FARC dissidents and Ecuador's Los Lobos.