The Mexican president rejected talk of a U.S. troop deployment in Mexico, amid reports Trump has authorized military action against cartel organizations.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said U.S. troops would not conduct military operations within Mexico, amid reports that President Donald Trump has directed U.S. forces to take actions to disrupt cartel operations throughout Latin America.
“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military. We cooperate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion,“ Sheinbaum said at an Aug. 8 press conference. ”That is ruled out. Absolutely ruled out.”
Sheinbaum’s comments came hours after The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that Trump secretly directed U.S. military action against Latin American cartels that his administration previously designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
The Epoch Times reached out for comment concerning Trump’s reported order authorizing military action against the cartels but did not receive a response by publication time.
In February, the U.S. State Department formally labeled the Sinaloa cartel, the Gulf cartel, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, the United cartels, the La Nueva Familia Michoacana organization, and the Northeast cartel as foreign terrorist organizations. The administration also applied the terror label to the El Salvador-based gang known as Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, as well as the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua.
In May, the State Department also listed the Haitian criminal organizations Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif as foreign terrorist organizations.
While not directly confirming a Trump administration plan to employ U.S. military force against Latin American cartels, Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed using a variety of new authorities against the cartels in an Aug. 7 interview with EWTN.
On the administration’s decision to designate certain cartels as transnational criminal organizations, Rubio said new terrorism designations allow the U.S. government “to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever … to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it.”
“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug-dealing organizations,” Rubio added.
By Ryan Morgan
