Mexico has said that the US Army is not entering its territory, after the report that President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to target the Latin American drug cartel.
President Claudia Shinbam said on Friday, “Mexico is not going to come with the United States Army.” “We collaborate, we collaborate, but the attack is not going to occur. It is rejected, completely rejected.”
The New York Times said on Friday that Trump secretly signed a instruction to use military force on foreign soil.
In a statement to the BBC, the White House did not address the instructions, but said that Trump’s “top priority is protecting the motherland”.
The reported directive appears to be to follow an executive order earlier this year by Trump, which formally nominates eight drug cartel as terrorist institutions – six of which are Mexicans.
Speaking to reporters, Shinbam said that the Mexican government was informed that an order was coming on the cartel, and “it had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel”.
“It is not part of any agreement, far away from it. When it has been brought, we have always called ‘no’,” he said.
Earlier this year, Shinbam told reporters that Trump decided to nominate Cartel as terrorists “could not be an opportunity for the US to attack our sovereignty”.
On Thursday, state secretary Marco Rubio said the designation would help American target cartels, including intelligence agencies and the Defense Department.
Rubio said, “We have to start behaving them as armed terrorist organizations, not only drug dealing organization.”
The New York Times report stated that the instructions signed by Trump against Cartels, providing “an official basis for the possibility of direct military operation” against cartel on both sea and foreign soil.
In recent months, Mexico has worked with the US to curb the illegal flow of both migrants and drugs through the US-Maxico border.
According to US Customs and Border Security data, June saw the lowest border crossing on records, and last week, Mexico’s US Ambassador Ronald Johnson stated that the fantaneel seizures on the border were more than half below.
In a post on X, Johnson celebrated cooperation between Sheenbam and Trump, wrote that his leadership resulted in cartel “bankruptcy and our countries are safe because of it”.