Establishing the United States Council on Transnational Organized Crime

The order establishes two new bodies. First, the USCTOC — a council of six cabinet-level principals (State, Treasury, Defense, Attorney General, Homeland Security, and Director of National Intelligence) that monitors and oversees coordinated counter-transnational-organized-crime (TOC) strategy. Second, it creates a USCTOC Strategic Division, an interagency working group housed at the Department of Justice, charged with producing strategic plans for whole-of-government counter-TOC efforts. The order also directs the Director of National Intelligence to submit an annual assessment of the Intelligence Community's TOC-related collection efforts and resource needs. Section 3 of Executive Order 13773 (2017), which had directed a Threat Mitigation Working Group to lead TOC efforts, is revoked.

The order sets broad counter-TOC policy goals — including disrupting criminal finance, improving law enforcement and intelligence sharing, deploying new technologies, and building partner-nation capacity — but does not itself impose new legal requirements on private parties or change any existing law. Actual impact depends on the strategic plans and recommendations the new bodies produce.

Six federal departments and the intelligence community, whose senior officials sit on the USCTOC and must detail qualified personnel and share intelligence with the Strategic Division. State, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement partners are named as collaborators in the broader counter-TOC framework.

Federal agencies working on drug trafficking, human trafficking, cybercrime, and related threats now operate under a single coordinating council with a dedicated planning staff. The shift from a working group to a cabinet-level council signals a higher bureaucratic priority for counter-TOC work, which could affect resource allocation and interagency cooperation.

The USCTOC must hold its first meeting within 60 days of signing and report to the President through the National Security Advisor. The Strategic Division, chaired on alternating two-year terms by a DOJ or DHS senior official, produces strategic plans informed by intelligence assessments and submits them upward to the USCTOC. Within 120 days, the Division must deliver a threat-prioritization process report to the USCTOC; the DNI must deliver an annual intelligence posture assessment to the President. Agencies fund their own personnel details; DOJ provides administrative support and funding for the Division subject to appropriations.