President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that his administration will “eliminate” and “eradicate” the threat posed by drug cartels in the United States. The president described drug cartels as the “ISIS of the Western Hemisphere.”

During a Thursday roundtable discussion with the Homeland Security Task Force, which the president established in January, Trump outlined the “sweeping, unprecedented, and historically successful operation” that his administration has executed over the past several weeks to “arrest, prosecute, and permanently remove members of foreign drug cartels from American soil.”

Trump explained that drug cartels, which he described as the “worst of the worst,” have caused “more bloodshed and killing” in the United States than “all other terrorist groups combined.”

“It should now be clear to the entire world that the cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere,” Trump said. “In addition to their monstrous violence, such as cutting off heads, burning their enemies alive, and burning innocent people alive too, by the way, the cartels control large swaths of territory, they maintain vast arsenals of weapons and soldiers, and they use extortion, murder, [and] kidnapping to exercise political and economic control.”

During Thursday’s roundtable meeting, Trump blamed former President Joe Biden for “allowing” drug cartels to gain power and carry out violent operations in the United States. According to Fox News, Trump claimed that Biden “surrendered” the United States to the drug cartels.

“Under the Trump Administration, we’re finally treating the cartels as the core national security threat that they really are,” the president said. “The cartels are waging war on America, and just as I promised in the campaign, we’re waging war on them like they’ve never seen before.”

READ MORE: Videos: Trump reveals plans to ‘hit’ drug smugglers on land

“Past administrations have tried to mitigate this threat, and our objective is to eliminate it,” Trump added. “We’re not mitigating. We’re eliminating. We’re getting them out. The bad ones we’re putting in prison. We hate to do that, because that means we’re stuck with them for 50 years or more.”

The president pledged that his administration would not stop targeting drug cartels until the threat posed by the cartels is “fully and completely eradicated.”

During Thursday’s roundtable meeting, Trump was asked whether his administration would try to get a declaration of war from Congress to carry out his plan to eliminate the drug cartels.

In response, Trump told reporters, “I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them. You know, they’re going to be, like, dead.”