Sunday 04 / May / 2025
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Saturday that she had turned down an offer from her US counterpart, Donald Trump, to send American soldiers to Mexico to help fight drug cartels.
At an event in Texcoco, on the outskirts of the capital, Mexico City, Sheinbaum said Trump had made the offer during one of several phone calls between the two leaders.
"I told him, ''No, President Trump, our territory is inviolable, our sovereignty is inviolable, our sovereignty is not for sale,'" Sheinbaum said.
What else did Sheinbaum tell Trump?
"There is no need — we can collaborate, we can work together, but you in your territory, we in ours. We can share information, but we will never accept the presence of the US Army in our territory," the Mexican president added.
Her remarks come after the Wall Street Journal reported this week that Trump was pushing for more US military involvement to tackle drug trafficking.
Sheinbaum also said she had urged Trump to halt weapons smuggling across the border from the US.
She told the event in Texcoco that the US president had issued an order on Friday ensuring that all available measures were being deployed to stop weapons from entering Mexico.
US weapons contributing to cartel violence
The massive amounts of arms coming in from the US have helped make Mexico one of the world's most violent countries.
Over 450,000 people have been killed since the Mexican state declared war on the country's drug trafficking gangs, known as cartels.
Trump has often complained of cross-border drug smuggling and undocumented immigrants. He has slapped import duties on Mexico as a way to pressure Mexican authorities to do more to tackle drug cartels and stem irregular migration.
The sweeping tariffs are expected to have a severe impact on Mexico, which is the United States' largest trading partner and the second-largest economy in Latin America.
A delicate dance
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, Sheinbaum, a leftist, has sought to find a balance in her dealings with the US Republican leader, having to placate him while also defending her nation's interests.
Trump's rhetoric has repeatedly angered Mexicans. In March, he said his country's neighbor to the south was "dominated entirely by criminal cartels that murder, rape, torture and exercise total control... posing a grave threat to our national security."
When he first announced his intention to run for president in 2015, Trump said Mexico was sending people to America who were "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Growing US militarization of southern borders alarms critics
