Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insisted Friday that there can be “no invasion of Mexico” following studies that President Donald Trump had ordered the U.S. army to focus on Latin American drug cartels.
“There might be no invasion of Mexico,” Sheinbaum declared after The New York Instances reported that Mr. Trump had secretly signed a directive ordering army pressure in opposition to cartels his administration has declared terrorist organizations.
“We have been knowledgeable that this government order was coming and that it had nothing to do with the participation of any army personnel or any establishment in our territory,” Sheinbaum advised her common morning information convention.
AFP contacted the Pentagon to verify the order however has not but obtained a response.
The Instances stated Mr. Trump’s directive offered an official foundation for army operations at sea or on international soil in opposition to the cartels. Individually, the Reuters information company, citing legislation enforcement paperwork, reported that the FBI is in search of so as to add drug cartel suspects to the U.S. authorities’s terrorist watch listing.
White Home spokeswoman Anna Kelly, whereas not confirming the studies, stated in a press release that Mr. Trump’s “prime precedence is defending the homeland, which is why he took the daring step to designate a number of cartels and gangs as international terrorist organizations.”
In February, the Trump administration designated eight drug trafficking teams as terrorist organizations. Six are Mexican, one is Venezuelan, and the eighth originates in El Salvador.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Thursday the administration might use the designations to “goal” cartels.
“It permits us to now goal what they’re working and to make use of different components of American energy, intelligence companies, the Division of Protection, no matter … to focus on these teams if we’ve a chance to do it,” Rubio stated. “We now have to start out treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not merely drug dealing organizations.”
After the designations have been introduced in February, Sheinbaum additionally warned that Mexico would by no means tolerate an invasion by america.
“This can’t be a chance for the U.S. to invade our sovereignty,” she stated on the time. “With Mexico it’s collaboration and coordination, by no means subordination or interventionism, and even much less invasion.”
Two weeks in the past, the Trump administration designated one other Venezuelan gang as a international terrorist group, the Cartel of the Suns, which has shipped tons of of tons of narcotics into america over twenty years.
On Thursday, the U.S. Justice Division doubled to $50 million its bounty on Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, whom it accuses of main the Cartel of the Suns.
Venezuela has denounced the allegations.
Venezuela’s Overseas Minister Yván Gil dismissed the bounty as “essentially the most ridiculous smokescreen we’ve ever seen.”
