Below, InSight Crime examines five ways in which Trump has attempted to use crime as a red herring to distract attention from his administration’s true goals.

1. Drug Policy as Cover for Attacks on Political Opponents

The most controversial proposal in Trump’s new plan to fight drug addition was the president’s call to impose the death penalty on drug traffickers. It’s likely that this would be unconstitutional, but the line still received applause from the audience to which he announced it.

Trump’s call for “toughness” in fighting drug addiction is a common refrain for the president. However, there are several indications that the president’s focus on going after drug dealers is a smokescreen for targeting political opponents, particularly people of color.

The use of the “war on drugs” to target political enemies has a long history in the United States. In fact, an aide to former President Richard Nixon — who coined the phrase “war on drugs” — admitted that the administration deliberately tried to associate “the antiwar left and black people” with drugs as a back-door method of criminalizing those groups.

Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have both been repeatedly accused of racism, and the criminal justice policies that they have promoted — such as bringing back harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes and going after marijuana users who are complying with state laws — have proven to disproportionately impact people of color.

In an opinion article last year, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, Bill Piper, argued that Trump “has consistently sought to increase the criminalization and incarceration of people of color.”

“Sessions isn’t a case of Trump having chosen the wrong person for the job,” Piper wrote. “For a president who believes that police officers should racially profile suspects and rough them up and torture them, Sessions is the perfect Attorney General. His racist past is an asset, not a liability.”

2. MS13 and Mexican Cartels as Cover for Anti-Immigrant Agenda

Trump launched his bid for the presidency by accusing Mexican immigrants of “bringing drugs” and “bringing crime” to the United States. And as president, he has repeatedly warned about the violence associated with the MS13 gang, whose members he has described as “animals.”

While it is true that the MS13 and Mexican crime groups represent significant security threats, Trump has used the specter of these criminal organizations to demonize immigrants and gin up support for anti-immigrant actions.

Associating immigrants with organized crime groups has been one of Trump’s main justifications for a slew of anti-immigrant policies enacted during his first year in office. And his rhetoric has provided ammunition to allies in congress seeking to make it easier to deport immigrants based on accusations — often unfounded — that they belong to criminal organizations.

The clearest evidence that Trump’s anti-immigrant proposals have nothing to do with countering crime is that they are widely viewed as ineffective or even detrimental in terms of achieving that goal. For example, the infamous border wall is unlikely to hinder drug trafficking and law enforcement leaders have warned that Trump’s fearmongering about immigrants actually makes the fight against the MS13 more difficult.

3. Hezbollah as Cover for Hawkish Approach to Iran

Trump has also placed renewed focus on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, calling it a “top priority” for his administration. In September last year, several US agencies organized a workshop in Peru focused on countering the group’s “terrorist and criminal activities around the world.”

But despite decades of warnings about Hezbollah’s supposed infiltration of Latin America, there’s actually very little evidence that the group has a significant operational presence there. Rather than serving as a staging ground for launching terrorist attacks, Hezbollah’s activities Latin America are limited to providing what the State Department has described as “financial and ideological support” to the group.

The real aim of stirring up fears about Hezbollah is to generate support for a hawkish approach to Iran, which has been accused of acting as the group’s main sponsor.

Trump has taken an extremely aggressive approach to Iran, in contrast to his predecessor, Barack Obama, who pursued a policy of negotiation rather than confrontation. He has been backed in this effort by allied members of congress, who have passed legislation targeting Hezbollah as part of a broader effort to ramp up pressure on Iran.

4. Crime in Mexico as Cover for Trade Agreement Overhaul

Trump has repeatedly bashed Mexico for its crime problems, and has created major rifts in the bilateral relationship over his insistence that the United States’ southern neighbor should pay for the border wall, among other things.

Moreover, the State Department rolled out a new travel warning system earlier this year that discouraged US citizens from traveling to Mexico because of concerns about crime in various regions of the country.

But rather than offering to help Mexico with its longtime struggle against powerful criminal groups, the Trump administration has proposed huge cuts in aid — not only to Mexico, but to every country in Latin America.

That’s because the challenges Mexico faces in terms of crime are not Trump’s primary concern. Instead, he has used the issue as a cudgel in his campaign to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

However, twisting Mexico’s arm in an attempt to secure more favorable trade terms could actually backfire when it comes to security policy. Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray warned last year that a “bad outcome” in the NAFTA renegotiation could complicate bilateral cooperation on key issues like migration and crime.

5. Venezuela as Cover for Lacking Efforts on Corruption

As InSight Crime has previously noted, the Trump administration has significantly turned up the heat on Venezuela, issuing sanctions against a slate of top Venezuelan officials.

Despite having little actual impact on criminality within the government of President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has justified the sanctions as a demonstration of “the United States’ resolve to hold Maduro and others engaged in corruption in Venezuela accountable,” as the Treasury Department put it in one statement.

But Trump’s efforts to oppose corruption elsewhere in the region have not been as forceful. When Guatemala descended into political chaos last year over President Jimmy Morales’ attempt to expel the head of a United Nations-backed anti-graft body, Trump stayed silent, perhaps because he is currently the subject of a wide-ranging investigation with the potential to reveal corruption within his inner circle — or perhaps by the president himself.

The Trump administration has also strongly backed Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who held onto power via an election last year that was rife with evidence of fraud. Hernández and several individuals close to him have been accused or suspected of corruption, but the Trump administration has not given much rhetorical or material backing to those investigations.

The difference in the treatment of US allies like Hernández and foes like Maduro underscores the emptiness of Trump’s supposed commitment to fighting corruption in the region. And it also highlights a pattern of his administration selectively using crime-related issues to push other, unrelated agendas.