{"id":328622,"date":"2025-08-08T19:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328622\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T19:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:11:10","slug":"sheinbaum-rejects-us-invasion-after-trump-orders-military-to-target-mexico-cartels-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328622\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheinbaum rejects US \u2018invasion\u2019 after Trump orders military to target Mexico cartels | Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexico\u2019s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has rejected the idea that the US might invade Mexico after news reports suggested Donald Trump<\/a> had authorized the use of military force targeting drug cartels deemed terrorist organizations in Latin American countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States is not going to come to Mexico<\/a> with their military,\u201d she said during a daily news conference on Friday. \u201cWe cooperate, we collaborate, but there will be no invasion. It\u2019s off the table, absolutely off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mexican president said her government had been informed of the executive order but insisted that \u201cit had nothing to do with the participation of any military or any institution on our territory. There is no risk that they will invade our territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of Trump\u2019s secret directive to the Pentagon was first reported by the New York Times,<\/a> which cited people familiar with the matter, and noted that the order \u201cprovides an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations at sea and on foreign soil against cartels\u201d.<\/p>\n

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the move would enable the US government to use the military to target trafficking organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows us to now target what they\u2019re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever \u2026 to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug dealing organizations.\u201c<\/p>\n

Trump has made going after Latin American drug-trafficking organizations a top priority of his administration: in February,<\/a> the state department designated seven organized crime groups as foreign terrorist organizations, including five powerful cartels in Mexico.<\/p>\n

At the time, the White House claimed these groups<\/a> constituted \u201ca national security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime\u201d with activities including \u201cinfiltration into foreign governments across the Western Hemisphere\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how much impact that designation has had, as US agencies already have a range of tools to target transnational organized crime groups by restricting their members\u2019 abilities to travel or do business.<\/p>\n

But the designation would widen the range of potential targets for prosecution to include anyone who provides \u201cmaterial support\u201d to the cartels.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has also deployed thousands<\/a> of active-duty combat troops, as well as drones and spy planes to the south-west US border in order to crack down on the northward flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl, as well as staunch the flow of immigrants.<\/p>\n

If confirmed, this latest order would represent a profound and unprecedented escalation of tactics by the US government in Latin America, potentially opening the door for unilateral American military assaults across the region.<\/p>\n

This latest order would represent a profound and unprecedented escalation of tactics by the US government in Latin America, potentially opening the door for unilateral American military assaults across the region.<\/p>\n

Jack Riley, former deputy administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency who helped lead the capture of the drug kingpin Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n<\/a>, welcomed the Trump administration\u2019s directive, having long been a proponent of designating cartels as terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis to me is the next logical step,\u201d said Riley. \u201cIt probably opens up avenues for training our counterparts, additional funding obviously, and puts some teeth into the federal agencies that are operating overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Riley cautioned that Trump\u2019s order may face obstacles at home before troops can even set foot overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re probably going to have some legal challenges in the US to his authority to do this without congressional approval,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t seem to bother him.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Mexico, however, security analysts feared the move would not only be ineffective at eliminating drug-trafficking groups but also prove devastating to US-Mexico relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a welcome development,\u201d said Cecilia Farf\u00e1n-M\u00e9ndez, head of the North American observatory at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. \u201cAnd beyond the narrative, it seems to me that once again there\u2019s been a misdiagnosis of these illicit markets and how we can weaken and dismantle them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news comes at a delicate time for US-Mexico relations, with Mexico in the midst of negotiating a tariff deal with the Trump administration as well as a new security agreement, which Sheinbaum had said was close to being signed.<\/p>\n

Mexico and the United States have often cooperated closely on security, including during the M\u00e9rida Initiative back under former President Felipe Calder\u00f3n. But even then, said Farf\u00e1n-M\u00e9ndez, US boots on the ground was seen as a red line. This new move by the Trump administration would potentially cross that line \u2013 with devastating impacts on the countries\u2019 relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have very serious consequences, where Mexico would stop cooperating,\u201d she said. \u201cThis does seem to me like it would lead Mexico to ask, \u2018what\u2019s the incentive to collaborate with you? If you\u2019re going to take unilateral action anyway?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mexico\u2019s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has rejected the idea that the US might invade Mexico after news reports suggested…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-328622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114994735604312205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}