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Mexico rejects Trump's plan for military intervention in cartel conflict

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 09 August 2025 11:24 AM

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has firmly dismissed the possibility of a US military invasion targeting cartels in Mexico, after reports emerged of President Donald Trump ordering the Pentagon to use military force against the Latin American drug networks.

"The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military," President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday. "We co-operate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out."

The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump had secretly signed a directive allowing military action on foreign soil.

The reported directive appears to follow an executive order signed by Trump earlier this year formally designating eight drug cartels as terrorist entities - six of which are Mexican.

Speaking to reporters, Sheinbaum said the Mexican government was informed that an order on the cartels was coming, and "that it had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel."

"It is not part of any agreement, far from it. When it has been brought up, we have always said 'No'," she said.

Earlier this year, Sheinbaum told reporters that Trump's decision to designate cartels as terrorists "cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty."

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that this designation would facilitate US efforts to target the cartels through intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense.

"It allows us to now target what they are operating and to use other elements of American power [including] intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever ... to strike at these groups if we get the opportunity," Rubio added.

This latest order would represent a significant and unprecedented escalation of US tactics in Latin America, as it could open the door for the US to conduct unilateral military actions across the region.

However, security analysts in Mexico worry that such measures will not effectively dismantle drug-trafficking organizations and could severely damage US-Mexico relations.

This development arises at a sensitive time for the relationship between Mexico and the US, as Mexico is currently negotiating a tariff deal with the Trump administration, alongside a new security agreement that Sheinbaum indicated was near completion.

Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, the head of the North American Observatory at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, has warned that Trump's order "would have very serious consequences, where Mexico would stop cooperating."

"It would lead Mexico to ask, 'What is the incentive to collaborate with [the US] if [the US] is going to take unilateral action anyway?'"