MEXICO CITY, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday she has tasked her foreign minister with strengthening coordination with the United States, after President Donald Trump threatened land strikes on drug cartels, which he said were running Mexico.
"Yesterday, I asked Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente to make direct contact with the (U.S.) Secretary of State and, if necessary, speak with President Trump to strengthen coordination," Sheinbaum said during her morning press conference.
Trump’s remarks to Fox News on Thursday marked the latest in a series of escalating threats to deploy U.S. military force against drug cartels within Mexican territory, a move Mexico considers a red line. Trump's threats gained new force after U.S. forces attacked Venezuela last weekend and captured its president, Nicolas Maduro.
"We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday. “The cartels are running Mexico — it’s very, very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country."
Sheinbaum has repeatedly warned that any unilateral military action by the U.S. in Mexico would constitute a grave violation of the nation’s sovereignty. At the same time, she has doubled down on bilateral security cooperation with the U.S. to avoid Mexico being in Trump’s crosshairs.
On Thursday, she touted preliminary data that showed homicides have fallen by 40% since she took office in October 2024. She has also sought to placate Washington with two mass expulsions to the U.S. of alleged high-level cartel operatives and by undertaking a year-long military offensive against the Sinaloa Cartel.
Security analysts and Mexican officials say behind the scenes, Sheinbaum is likely to move even closer to Washington after the U.S. attack on Venezuela, hoping that increasingly tight bilateral security cooperation will stave off unilateral U.S. military action.
(Reporting by Diego Ore, Ana Isabel Martinez; Writing by Brendan O'Boyle; Editing by Emily Green, Rod Nickel)
