First and foremost, we need to treat cartels like businesses. The United States began to have success during the war on terror when it started to analogize Al Qaeda to a business: It had operations, recruitment, onboarding, marketing, and financial operations. Using that approach, the United States began to go after those individual “business functions.” It targeted recruitment in part by prosecuting “travelers” (people who sought to travel from the United States to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Syria). It struck terrorist training camps in Pakistan. It cooperated with social media platforms to take down propaganda. And perhaps most importantly, it used financial intelligence and sanctions to find and attack Al Qaeda’s funding network. In many ways, the analogy to a business was a useful model for applying a whole-of-government approach to counterterrorism.

There is no analogizing necessary with cartels: Cartels are businesses. We should not let CJNG’s propaganda videos of military gear and armored vehicles trick us into believing these groups are anything other than businesses. Thus, our tools should focus on hurting the business of the cartels.

The most important tool for attacking a business is to attack its money. The United States should prioritize using the same financial tools that it used in the counterterrorism fight. It has made a good start. With the designation of five key Mexican cartels as FTOs, the Administration also opened up the ability to sanction them and their personnel. It has started to do so. This has a power effect limiting their freedom of operations. It also hinders their ability to purge themselves of the evidence of their illegality through money laundering.

Such fundamental steps of attacking the business of the cartels are important. And just like any business, the cartels have taken steps to inculcate themselves with the government. Thus, anti-corruption efforts are where the United States should focus most of its attention.