Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) explained in an interview with Breitbart News on Thursday how his NARCO Act would codify Trump administration reforms to dismantle international cartels.
Davidson introduced the New Authorities Reforming Counter-Narcotics Operations Act (NARCO), which would set into law recent reforms installed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) under the International Security family at State Department. The NARCO Act would also implement parts of President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget request.
Davidson said the legislation follows in the “spirit” of a bill they introduced a few years ago called the Stop the Cartels Act.
The Ohio conservative said the legislation helps focus on a common sense issue: stopping cartels.
He asked rhetorically, “Can we at least agree we should stop the cartels and try to reframe the debate, and been pushing on that for a long time, just to get the focus where we treat the cartels as enemies of our country, because they’re enemies of our country.”
While Trump has been successful in shutting down the border, Davidson said now is the time to put these reforms into law.
He remarked, “We just want to lock this in so that no matter who’s president, you know, the focus stays the same.”
The NARCO Act strengthens INL’s mission and codifies key reforms, according to Davidson’s office, and would:
- Sunset ineffective nation-building programs by capping justice capacity-building efforts at no more than 10% of the Bureau’s budget.
- Codify Transnational Organized Crime and Narcotics Rewards Programs, requiring a minimum of 20% of the Bureau’s budget to be allocated toward rewarding successful interdictions, dismantling of cartels, and the capture of major criminals.
- Prioritize efforts to counter criminal activities that enable terrorist organizations, including narcotics trafficking, weapons smuggling, and illicit financing.
- Expand INL’s mandate to include combating illegal immigration and human smuggling by leveraging its expertise to support border security efforts.
- Enhance coordination with key agencies—such as the Department of the Treasury, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and the intelligence community—to implement a whole-of-government strategy.
- Strengthen oversight and accountability through the creation of a searchable database of Bureau programs, expenditures, and success metrics to promote transparency and responsible use of taxpayer funds.”
“Whatever you think about legal immigration, or, farm work programs or things like that, we could at least agree that the cartels are exploiting people. Let’s shut those people down. And they don’t just traffic people. They do traffic drugs and guns, and they launder money,” Davidson said.
He continued, “They’re engaged in all kinds of increasingly, the cartels are even involved in some of the scam centers, where they’re running big data centers to try to scam our seniors. So, you know, we want to shut these enterprises down. And I think Donald Trump has done the right thing in. Treat them as foreign adversaries.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.