For his part, the United States ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, said the two North American nations will fight together against criminal groups.
“The violent cartels poison our people, threaten our communities and weaken the security and prosperity of our two nations. They are not only drug traffickers, they are terrorists who destroy lives, corrupt institutions and keep entire communities as hostages of fear,” said the ambassador.
“This is not about the United States to act alone, but to build a joint and unwavering front with Mexico to defend our citizens, dismantle cartels networks and ensure that the only people who must fear are those who profit from murder, addiction and chaos,” he added.
The pronouncements occur hours after it was revealed that President Donald Trump’s government could use the military to go after drug cartels that have been designated as global terrorist organizations and has ordered the Pentagon to prepare options.
The Trump administration appointed the Aragua Train, the Sinaloa Cartel and other groups of drug traffickers such as global terrorist organizations in February, while the White House intensified immigration repression against alleged gang members.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the Government could now use the military to go after the cartels.
“It allows us to point to what they are operating and use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever (…) to aim at these groups if we have the opportunity to do it,” Rubio said.
“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply as drug traffickers organizations.”
The New York Times reported Friday that Trump had secretly signed a directive to start using military force against groups.
An American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that measure, but said that the military action against the designated groups did not seem imminent and that it was not clear what kind of operations would carry out.
A second American official said that, among other things, the authority would grant the Navy the power to carry out actions at sea and include drug interception operations.
The United States Army has already been increasing its air vigels of Mexican drug cartels to collect intelligence information to determine the best way to counteract its activities.
President Claudia Sheinbaum said that US army members would not enter Mexican territory.
The president said that her government had been informed of an upcoming decree, but that it had nothing to do with US military operating on Mexican soil.
Trump has previously offered US troops to Mexico to help Sheinbaum fight drug trafficking, an offer that the president said in May that he had rejected.
The US president has publicly said that he would take unilateral military action if Mexico does not dismantle the drug cartels.
Trump considered a military action in Mexico during his first term. His former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, wrote in his memoirs that the Republican asked at least twice in 2020 if the military could “shoot missiles to Mexico to destroy drug laboratories.”
Esper wrote that he had responded that it would be illegal and an act of war.
-With Reuters information.
