Mexico has said the U.S. military will not enter its territory after reports that President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to target Latin American drug cartels.
“The United States will not come to Mexico with the military,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday. “We work together, we work together, but there will be no invasion. This is excluded, absolutely excluded.”
The New York Times reported last Friday that Trump had signed a directive secretly to begin using military power on foreign soil.
In a statement to the BBC, the White House did not address the directive, but said that Trump’s “priority is to protect his home.”
The directive, reportedly, appears to follow an executive order signed earlier this year, formally designating eight drug cartels as terrorist entities – six of which are Mexicans.
Sheinbaum said in a reporter that the Mexican government was told that the cartel’s order was coming and that “it has nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel.”
“It’s not part of any agreement,” she said.
Earlier this year, Sheinbaum told reporters that Trump’s decision to designate a cartel as a terrorist “can’t be an opportunity for the United States to invade our sovereignty.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the designation would help U.S. target cartels, including through intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense.
“We have to start seeing them as armed terrorist organizations, not just drug dealers,” Rubio said.
The New York Times report said the directive signed by Trump “provides a formal basis for the possibility of direct military operations against cartels at sea and on foreign soil.
In recent months, Mexico has worked with the United States to curb the illegal movement of immigration and drugs through the U.S.-Mexico border.
In June, the lowest crossing point on record, according to data from U.S. Customs and border protection measures, last week, U.S. ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said fentanyl seizures at the border had dropped by more than half.
In an article on X, Johnson celebrated the collaboration between Sheinbum and Trump and wrote that their leadership led to the cartel “bankruptcy and our country is safer.”
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