What’s in Trump’s New Counterterrorism Strategy?
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. President Donald Trump’s new counterterrorism strategy, Iran considers a new U.S. proposal to end the war, and Israel strikes Beirut for the first time in weeks.
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. President Donald Trump’s new counterterrorism strategy, Iran considers a new U.S. proposal to end the war, and Israel strikes Beirut for the first time in weeks.
What Does Trump View as Terrorism?
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a new national counterterrorism strategy that outlines his administration’s approach to terror threats both at home and abroad. The strategy is indicative of the ways that Trump has sought to reshape U.S. national security priorities and reframe what should be considered a terror threat.
The document points to countering drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere as the administration’s first priority, breaking from the counterterrorism strategies of Trump’s predecessors that placed more emphasis on threats emanating from jihadis or white supremacist groups in the United States.
The strategy’s release comes more than eight months after the Trump administration began a controversial campaign of deadly strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Trump has characterized these strikes as part of a fight against “narcoterrorists” who produce and sell drugs that kill Americans.
Legal experts have said the strikes violate both domestic and international law. They have also pushed back against the notion that drug cartels or smugglers can be considered terrorists.
“Criminal organizations aren’t terrorist groups,” Colin Clarke, a top counterterrorism expert and executive director of the Soufan Center, told SitRep. That........
