Mexico on Wednesday rejected “interventionism” after US President Donald Trump said he will designate the Latin American nation’s cartels as terrorist organizations, while a former US official warned of unintended outcomes from such a move.

Designating groups as foreign terrorist organisations is aimed at disrupting their finances through the imposition of US sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, on them and individuals and entities that support them.

Speaking in an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump said he had been working for 90 days on the process, which he said was necessary to stop drug traffickers whose products kills tens of thousands of Americans However, Mexico has warned it could respond in kind to such a move, while immigration lawyers said calling traffickers terrorists could in some cases make Mexicans eligible for asylum.

A former State Department official who ran the foreign terrorist designation process said applying that status to purely criminal organizations would damage bilateral relations, cause economic harm and risk degrading the program.

“You are blurring the lines between criminality and terrorism and that is extremely problematic” he said.”Where would you stop?” he said, adding that dozens of criminal gangs around the world could become eligible for the same status.

The US State Department includes dozens of organizations on its list of terrorist groups. Most are Islamist, separatist or Marxist insurgents. In Latin America, left-wing guerrilla and right-wing paramilitaries, both involved in drug trafficking, have in the past appeared on the list.