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U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio said Thurs­day that the Unit­ed States is des­ig­nat­ing two Ecuado­ri­an gangs as for­eign ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tions in the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s lat­est move against car­tels.

The an­nounce­ment came as Ru­bio trav­elled to Ecuador to meet with its lead­ers in a trip to Latin Amer­i­ca this week that has been over­shad­owed by a U.S. mil­i­tary strike against a sim­i­lar­ly des­ig­nat­ed gang, Tren de Aragua, that has raised con­cerns in the re­gion about whether the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion will step up mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty to com­bat drug traf­fick­ing and il­le­gal mi­gra­tion.

The two new de­signees, Los Lo­bos and Los Choneros, are Ecuado­ri­an gangs blamed for much of the vi­o­lence that be­gan since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. The des­ig­na­tion, Ru­bio said, brings “all sorts of op­tions” for the U.S. gov­ern­ment to work in con­junc­tion with the gov­ern­ment of Ecuador to crack down on these groups.