MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Mexico and the United States on Wednesday agreed during U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s visit to keep collaborating on cross-border security, including fighting the trafficking of drugs, guns and fuel, but made clear it would be done from their respective sides of the border, respecting each other\u2019s sovereignty at a time of heightened concerns over U.S. intervention in the region.<\/p>\n
What had initially been advertised as the signing of a broad security agreement but it evolved into a reaffirmation of the collaboration Mexico and the U.S. have said they\u2019ve been doing all along. <\/p>\n
The priorities remain stopping fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into the U.S., and preventing high-powered guns bought in U.S. gun shops from being smuggled into Mexico, while continuing to control migration, which has fallen dramatically. The new development was the establishment of a \u201chigh-level implementation group\u201d for that continued collaboration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a high-level group that will meet and coordinate on a regular basis to make sure that all the things we are working on, all the things we have agreed to work on, are happening, are being implemented,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the closest cooperation we\u2019ve ever had, maybe between any country, but definitely between the U.S. and Mexico,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n
Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Ram\u00f3n de la Fuente said, \u201cIt\u2019s fundamental to show to U.S. society, Mexican society, that yes, models of cooperation, of collaboration can be built that work, that give results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rubio spoke after meeting with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to stress the importance the U.S. places on cooperating with Washington<\/a> on security, trade and migration. Rubio will visit Ecuador on Thursday on his third trip to Latin America<\/a> since taking office. Sheinbaum has voiced fears of the U.S. encroaching<\/a> on Mexican sovereignty.<\/p>\n Gunboat diplomacy<\/p>\n The meeting came a day after President Donald Trump<\/a> dramatically stepped up his administration\u2019s military role in the Caribbean with what he called a deadly strike on a Venezuelan drug cartel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump has alienated many in the region with persistent demands and threats of sweeping tariffs<\/a> and massive sanctions for refusing to follow his lead, particularly on migration and the fight against drug cartels<\/a>. Likely to heighten those concerns is the U.S. having deployed warships<\/a> to the Caribbean and elsewhere off Latin America and announcing a lethal strike on an alleged Tren de Aragua gang vessel<\/a> said to be carrying narcotics.<\/p>\n Rubio continued defending the strike without addressing details, including whether those aboard the boat were warned before being fired upon. Trump said all 11 were killed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president, under his authority as commander in chief, has a right under exigent circumstances to eliminate imminent threats to the United States,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n His Mexican counterpart, de la Fuente, emphasized his country\u2019s preference for \u201cnonintervention, peaceful solution of conflicts.\u201d <\/p>\n The U.S. has a complicated legacy of sticking its hand in Latin American affairs, and American military interventions \u2014 particularly during the Cold War \u2014 played a major part in destabilizing governments and paving the way for coups in Guatemala and Chile.<\/p>\n In recent years, the U.S. has taken a more subtle approach, providing foreign assistance to many countries, including training security forces, but not making direct strikes like what was seen Tuesday in Caribbean waters.<\/p>\n Mexico\u2019s president pushes back on Trump saying she\u2019s not ready to target cartels<\/p>\n Trump has demanded, and so far won, some concessions<\/a> from Sheinbaum\u2019s government, which is eager to defuse his tariff threats, although she has fiercely defended Mexico\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n Sheinbaum again rejected Trump\u2019s suggestion that she is afraid of confronting Mexico\u2019s cartels because they have so much power. <\/p>\n \u201cWe respect a lot the Mexico-United States relationship, President Trump, and no, it\u2019s not true this affirmation that he makes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In a State of the Nation address this week marking her first year in office<\/a>, she said, \u201cUnder no circumstance will we accept interventions, interference or any other act from abroad that is detrimental to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheinbaum has gone after Mexican drug cartels and their fentanyl production more aggressively than her predecessor. The government has sent the National Guard<\/a> to the northern border and delivered 55 cartel figures<\/a> long wanted by U.S. authorities to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n In a statement released after their meeting, the State Department extolled what it said was a reaffirmation of already robust security cooperation in a region that is now concerned with the prospect of greater U.S. military invention. It said Rubio thanked Sheinbaum for helping secure the shared border.<\/p>\n The U.S. statement made only a brief mention of one issue causing friction between the two nations: Trump\u2019s threat to impose hefty tariffs on Mexican imports into the United States. <\/p>\n The word \u201ctariff\u201d appeared only once in the statement and then in the context of Rubio emphasizing to Sheinbaum \u201cthe importance of resolving trade and non-trade barriers to further the prosperity of both of our nations.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Mar\u00eda Verza in Mexico City and Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Mexico and the United States on Wednesday agreed during U.S. Secretary of State Marco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[48181,42486,32,14615,5211,4179,10680,5212,3058,3274,2820,2132,9788,285,49,5213,978,659,10673,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-395525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-central-america","9":"tag-claudia-sheinbaum","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-drug-crimes","12":"tag-economic-policy","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-government-and-politics","15":"tag-government-policy","16":"tag-international-trade","17":"tag-latin-america","18":"tag-marco-rubio","19":"tag-mexico","20":"tag-pain-management","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-government","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-washington-news","27":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115142445352926929","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395525","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=395525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}