Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insisted Friday that there can be “no invasion of Mexico” following reviews that President Donald Trump had ordered the U.S. navy to focus on Latin American drug cartels.
“There will probably be no invasion of Mexico,” Sheinbaum declared after The New York Occasions reported that Mr. Trump had secretly signed a directive ordering navy drive in opposition to cartels his administration has declared terrorist organizations.
“We have been knowledgeable that this govt order was coming and that it had nothing to do with the participation of any navy personnel or any establishment in our territory,” Sheinbaum informed her common morning information convention.
AFP contacted the Pentagon to verify the order however has not but acquired a response.
The Occasions mentioned Mr. Trump’s directive supplied an official foundation for navy operations at sea or on overseas soil in opposition to the cartels. Individually, the Reuters information company, citing regulation 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 reviews, mentioned in an announcement 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 overseas 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 mentioned 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 parts 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 mentioned. “We have now 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 the US.
“This can’t be a chance for the U.S. to invade our sovereignty,” she mentioned 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 overseas terrorist group, the Cartel of the Suns, which has shipped lots of of tons of narcotics into the US over 20 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 International Minister Yván Gil dismissed the bounty as “essentially the most ridiculous smokescreen we’ve ever seen.”
