Mexico says US troops will not enter despite Trump plan to target drug cartels  | World News

Mexico’s president has said there will be no US military operations inside the country, following reports that President Donald Trump had ordered plans to target Latin American drug cartels.
“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters on Friday, according to the BBC. “We co-operate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out.”
The New York Times reported that Trump had signed a directive instructing the Pentagon to prepare the use of military force abroad. The BBC says the White House did not confirm the directive but said Trump’s “top priority is protecting the homeland”.
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Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order formally naming eight drug cartels as terror organisations, six of them based in Mexico.
Sheinbaum said her government was told an order on cartels was coming but stressed that it “had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel”. She added: “It is not part of any agreement, far from it. When it has been brought up, we have always said ‘No’.”
In January, she had said the US terror designation for cartels “cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the move would help the US take action against cartels through intelligence services and the Department of Defense. “We have to start treating them as armed terror organisations, not simply drug-dealing organisations,” he said.Story continues below this ad

The New York Times reported the directive could provide “an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations” against cartels, both at sea and on foreign territory.
Mexico and the US have been working together to stop the movement of migrants and drugs across the border. US data shows June had the lowest number of border crossings on record. Last week, US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said fentanyl seizures at the border had dropped more than half.
Mr Johnson wrote on X that joint work between Ms Sheinbaum and Mr Trump had seen cartels “going bankrupt and our countries are safer because of it”.