Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday that any US military presence Mexican soil to combat drug cartels was “absolutely off the table,” in response to a New York Times report that US President Donald Trump had signed a Pentagon directive initiating the use of military force against drug trafficking organizations.
“We cooperate, we collaborate, but there will be no invasion,” Sheinbaum said. Earlier this year, Trump ordered that certain cartels — including five Mexican syndicates — be designated as foreign terrorist organizations, raising the specter of unilateral US intervention in Latin America.
On Thursday, the US doubled its bounty for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s arrest to $50 million — a gesture that critics described as largely symbolic.