Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025

(1) Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants the Congress the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal to punish, deter, and prevent the acts of aggression and depredations and other acts of war committed by cartel conspirators.

(2) Cartels present an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy of the United States.

The President of the United States is authorized and requested to commission, under officially issued letters of marque and reprisal, so many of privately armed and equipped persons and entities as, in the judgment of the President, the service may require, with suitable instructions to the leaders thereof, to employ all means reasonably necessary to seize outside the geographic boundaries of the United States and its territories the person and property of any individual who the President determines is a member of a cartel, a member of a cartel-linked organization, or a conspirator associated with a cartel or a cartel-linked organization, who is responsible for an act of aggression against the United States.

No letter of marque and reprisal shall be issued by the President without requiring the posting of a security bond in such amount as the President shall determine is sufficient to ensure that the letter be executed according to the terms and conditions thereof.

In this section, the term cartel means an organization that—

(1) is described in section 1 of the executive order titled Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists and dated January 20, 2025; or

(2) is a transnational criminal organization under the meaning given that term in section 3003(5) of the Public Law 118–50 (21 U.S.C. 2341(5)).