U.S. military forces will not strike Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum vowed Friday in response to reports that President Trump has secretly directed the Pentagon to take action against Latin American drug cartels.
“There will be no invasion: That is rejected, absolutely rejected,” an emphatic Sheinbaum told reporters at her regular morning news conference. “The United States is not going to come to Mexico with troops.”
The media accounts, originating in the New York Times, revived nationalist fears in a nation that has endured U.S. invasions and land grabs over the years — though none in more than a century.
Sheinbaum said Mexico had been informed that Trump was issuing such an order, but “it has nothing to do with Mexican territory.”
The Mexican leader repeated her oft-stated mantra that Mexico “cooperates and collaborates” with its northern neighbor on drug trafficking and other bilateral issues, but rejects any U.S. military presence or strikes on Mexican soil.
In May, Sheinbaum said she had rebuffed Trump’s offer — made in one of many telephone calls between the two leaders — of direct U.S. military assistance.
“We can share information, but we will never accept the presence of the United States Army on our territory,” Sheinbaum said she told Trump in May. “Our territory is inalienable; sovereignty is inalienable.”
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It’s unclear which countries might be a target for a U.S. operation, but in an interview Thursday with on the Eternal Word Television Network, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that, aside from Mexico, there are cartels in Venezuela, Guatemala and Ecuador.
Rubio said cartels were no longer just a law enforcement issue, but a national security issue. “We cannot continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs,” he said. “They have weaponry that looks like what terrorists, in some cases armies, have.”
In Mexico, fears that U.S. forces may strike Mexican territory have been growing since the Trump administration formally labeled six Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Many in Mexico view the designation as a prelude to unilateral Pentagon attacks on purported cartel targets.
Trump has been complimentary of Sheinbaum but has denounced what he alleges is an “intolerable alliance” between Mexico’s government and organized crime.
Sheinbaum has rejected U.S. claims that organized crime permeates Mexico’s government and controls vast swaths of Mexican territory.
Trump has already imposed 25% tariffs on many imports from Mexico — Washington’s leading trading partner — which he says is aimed at forcing authorities here to do more to curb the trafficking of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid blamed for tens of thousands of deaths in the United States.
The Trump administration has also ramped up U.S. surveillance flights over and near Mexican territory and has massed U.S. troops on the southwestern border in an effort to crack down on drug smuggling and unauthorized immigration.
But Mexico is not the only nation where the Pentagon might consider striking drug cartels. Venezuela could also find itself in U.S. military crosshairs as Washington amps up its saber-rattling against the South American nation.
On Thursday the Trump administration said it was doubling its existing reward — to $50 million — for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime adversary who faces drug-trafficking charges in the United States.
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The U.S. State Department calls Maduro a “leader” of the Venezuelan-based Cartel de los Soles, which the Trump administration has labeled a terrorist group.
Washington also accused Maduro of links to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, which is among the crime syndicates the administration has labeled a foreign terrorist organization.
On Friday, Sheinbaum told reporters that Mexican authorities had seen no evidence connecting Maduro to the Sinaloa mob.
Venezuelan authorities dismissed the U.S. charges against Maduro as “political propaganda.”
Maduro returned to office in January after declaring victory in a 2024 election that critics called rigged and was widely rejected by the international community. Washington does not recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s president.
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
