The Mexican president tells Donald Trump that Mexico “never accepts the presence of US troops in our territory.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says she has rejected an offer from her US counterpart, Donald Trump, and rejected an offer to send troops to Mexico to fight drug trafficking.
Speaking at a public event on Saturday, Shenbaum said Trump had asked her during the phone whether she could help her fight organized crime and suggested sending our troops.
The Mexican leader said she declined and told Trump “will never accept the presence of the US Army in our territory.”
“I told him, ‘No, President Trump, our territory is inviolable, our sovereignty is inviolable, our sovereignty is not for sale,” Sinbaum said.
Her comments come the day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump is putting pressure on Mexico to allow “deeper US military involvement” in the fight against drug cartels.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the issue, the news outlet said Trump “suspicious tensions rose” between the April 16 leadership between the two leaders “who sought to ensure that the US military plays a leading role in fighting Mexican drug gangs that produce and smuggle fentanyl into the United States.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has repeatedly attacked other neighbors in Mexico and the US, Canada and drug trafficking.
He accused both countries of allowing illegal drugs, particularly fentanyl, to flow through the borders to the United States.
The Trump administration has also linked the driving force behind imposing sudden tariffs on fentanyl trafficking on Mexican and Canadian goods, among other factors.
On Saturday, Shanebaum said he offered to work with the US during talks with Trump, including greater information sharing.
At the same time, the Mexican president said he urged Trump to stop cross-border arms trafficking, which contributed to a wave of violence that killed more than 450,000 people in Mexico for nearly 20 years.
She added that Trump issued an order on Friday “to ensure that everything is in place to prevent weapons from entering our country from the United States.”
A spokesman for the National Security Council told Reuters that Trump had made it clear that Mexico had to do more to fight these gangs and cartels.
The spokesman added that Trump worked closely with Shanebaum to achieve “the safest southwest border in history.”
But “dangerous foreign terrorist organizations continue to threaten our shared security and the drugs and crime they have spread,” the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to advance his plans to implement the “largest deportation operation” in US history despite some legal challenges against his hard-hit anti-immigration policies.
The U.S. Department of Defense said earlier this week it designated a second stretch on the border with Mexico as a military zone for immigration laws to be enacted.
The latest region is in Texas, USA, and is attached to Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso.
Like the first zone established in New Mexico last month, military personnel are permitted to obtain custody of immigrants that cross irregular borders until they are transferred to private authorities in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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