President Donald Trump has secretly signed an order directing the military to take action against drug-smuggling cartels and other criminal groups from Latin America, according to a report in The New York Times.

The newspaper’s report on Friday appeared to confirm statements earlier in the week from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who signalled the US military had approval to take aggressive action against cartels.

“It allows us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever … to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it,” Rubio said on Thursday.

“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organisations, not simply drug-dealing organisations.”

The news, however, has spurr

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