Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has again rejected the possibility of U.S. military intervention on Mexican soil, despite growing threats from her counterpart Donald Trump.
At a news conference Tuesday morning, Sheinbaum was asked about President Trump’s comments the day before in which he expressed displeasure with Mexico and mused about taking tough measures.
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“That’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum replied in Spanish.
She went on to explain that she made her position clear “multiple times” in phone calls with President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“He has suggested and said several times, ‘We’ll provide U.S. military intervention in Mexico and whatever it takes to fight these criminal groups,'” she explained.
He said he was open to cooperation and information sharing with the U.S. military, but reiterated his position that outside intervention is not acceptable on Mexican soil.
“We do not accept interference by any foreign government,” Sheinbaum continued. “I told him on the phone. I told the State Department, I told Marco Rubio.”
Reply to Trump
Her comments came shortly after President Trump’s Oval Office meeting with FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Monday. The Republican president used his public platform to address expanded military operations against drug cartels and criminal networks in Latin America.
When asked by a reporter if he was considering “the possibility of launching an attack in Mexico,” Trump responded in the affirmative.
“To stop drugs? I’m fine with that. Whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” Trump said. “I looked at Mexico City over the weekend. There are some big problems there.”
He then mentioned the US bombing campaign that began on September 2nd.
At least 21 deadly missile attacks were carried out on suspected drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing 83 people.
United Nations officials and other legal experts condemned the military operation as an illegal extrajudicial killing.
But President Trump has indicated that his campaign could eventually include strikes against ground targets in Mexico.
“If we had to, would we do the same thing there that we did for our waterways? You know, very few drugs come into our waterways anymore,” Trump continued.
“Would we do that overland? We absolutely would. Look, every boat we knock out saves 25,000 American lives, not to mention the destruction of families.”
President Trump has repeatedly used the 25,000 number to justify the boat bombing campaign, but that number has no basis in fact.
Fatal drug overdoses have declined in recent years, with 73,960 deaths recorded in the 12 months ending in April, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Trump administration has also not provided any conclusive evidence of who was on board the bombed vessel or any link to drug trafficking.
The identities of the victims remain largely unknown, but families in countries including Venezuela, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago claim their loved ones went missing after the attacks. Some claim that their relatives were just fishermen.
The two survivors were repatriated in October, one to Colombia and the other to Ecuador, with the latter releasing the men without charge.
President Trump has long threatened to expand the bombing campaign to include ground targets. But he declined to say whether he would seek permission before attacking Mexico if he chose to do so.
“I can’t answer that question,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “I’ve been talking to Mexico. They know my position.”
He later added, “Let me just say this: I’m not happy with Mexico.”
Treat cartels as “enemy combatants”
Since taking office for his second term, Mr. Trump has asserted extraordinary powers to justify increasingly aggressive actions against drug cartels, going so far as to claim that the United States is at war with drug traffickers.
In the United States, only Congress can formally declare war. But in August, President Trump reportedly signed a secret order authorizing military action against the cartels, sparking new fears in Mexico.
“There will be no invasion,” Mr. Sheinbaum told voters at the time.
And on October 2, President Trump issued a memo to Congress asserting that Latin American cartels are “enemy combatants” in a “non-international armed conflict” and laying out the administration’s legal arguments against ongoing attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific.
President Trump has also classified various drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations” throughout his second term, but that designation alone does not justify military action under international and domestic law.
In remarks from the Oval Office on Monday, President Trump reiterated his position that the United States considers itself to be in an armed conflict.
“We know the addresses of all the drug lords. We know their addresses. We know their doorsteps. We know everything about all of them. They’re killing our people. It’s like a war,” President Trump said.
The United States has a long and controversial history of military intervention in Latin America, and in recent years there has been renewed interest in the United States’ right to send troops to Mexico.
For example, in 2023, prominent Republican leader and then-presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said he would send U.S. special forces across the border into Mexico to fight drug-trafficking cartels.
“And I’m going to do that from day one,” DeSantis told Fox News at the time, reflecting on his plans for the presidency.
Concerns that Trump would spearhead such action date back to his first term as president, from 2017 to 2021, when he first considered using the “foreign terrorist organization” designation.
Sheinbaum’s predecessor, then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, similarly had to allay concerns that Trump would pursue foreign intervention as a result.
On Tuesday, Sheinbaum echoed López Obrador’s comments and denied that US intervention was being considered.
“There is collaboration and coordination,” Sheinbaum responded. “But there is no subordination and no interference can be tolerated.”
