Amid ongoing threats from President Donald Trump to use drone strikes against drug cartels, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated her opposition to any military action inside her country. Meanwhile, Fox News turns on Trump as host makes terrifying five-word confession on tariffs.
“We do not agree with any kind of intervention or interference,” Sheinbaum told reporters Tuesday at her daily morning news conference. “This has been very clear: We coordinate, we collaborate, [but] we are not subordinate and there is no meddling in these actions.”
The president's comments come as reports are growing that the Trump administration is considering carrying out military strikes on cartel targets. Reports suggest the administration is prepared to act unilaterally if Washington cannot secure Mexican support. It comes as Trump suffers a mental collapse after a 'senile' moment on stage in the middle of a speech.
On Tuesday, NBC News reported, citing six current and former U.S. officials, that the White House was considering drone strikes in Mexico “to combat criminal gangs trafficking narcotics across the southern border.”
The Trump administration has already designated six Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that was quickly opposed by the Mexican government.
Many within Sheinbaum's administration viewed this as the first step towards the U.S. carrying out military strikes in Mexico for the first time since the Mexican-American War in the mid-1800s.
Sheinbuam has agreed to the Central Intelligence Agency and stepped up military surveillance flights over Mexico for the purposes of gathering information about the cartels, officials have said.
But experts warn that direct military strikes inside of Mexico would cross a red line and could lead to swift deterioration of U.S.-Mexico relations — potentially ending any cooperation with the Trump administration's immigration priorities.
“Unilateral U.S. strikes on Mexican soil would be devastating for the bilateral relations and could be detrimental to the objective of fighting drug cartels,” Gustavo A. Flores-Macías, professor of government at Cornell University, told the Los Angeles Times via email. “The Mexican government would face tremendous domestic pressure to respond in the strongest possible terms — including severing diplomatic relations with the U.S. and collapsing binational cooperation on migration and security, among other topics."
The issue of U.S. interference on Mexican sovereign territory is a historically sensitive one given the country lost more than half of its territory during the Mexican-American War. The war is historically seen as an act of aggressive imperialism on the part of the U.S.. Mexico also endured 20th-century incursions, including the 1914 U.S. military occupation of the port of Veracruz and the unsuccessful 1916-17 expedition to capture Gen. Francisco “Pancho” Villa, the Mexican revolutionary leader.
But Trump has frequently said that Mexico is “essentially run by the cartels” an assertion repeatedly rejected by Sheinbaum who has said Mexico will defend its sovereignty against “violations by land, sea or air.”
