Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that she ordered her country’s top diplomat to speak with the highest levels of the U.S. government to work on improving binational coordination in order to keep U.S. forces from carrying out direct attacks against cartels inside Mexico. This appears to be her latest effort to protect the violent drug trafficking cartels that exert political influence at every level of her country.
The announcement came in response to a series of comments made by U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who claimed that while his forces had been highly effective in stopping the maritime flow of drugs, drug cartels continue to control Mexico.
“We are now going to start hitting land with regards to cartels,” Trump said on Thursday evening during an interview with Sean Hannity.
Trump’s comments drew widespread attention in Mexico, where news outlets and individuals from political parties opposed to Sheinbaum’s government have continuously exposed widespread corruption and cartel complicity between drug cartels and the country’s political elite.
Soon after Trump ordered a successful military operation in Venezuela, where authorities and military forces arrested narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro, many in Mexico began to call for similar actions in that country or hinted that politicians within the country’s political elite could be next.
During her morning news conference, Sheimbaum revealed that she had instructed Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary, Juan Ramon de La Fuente, to speak with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Trump directly to discuss improving international law enforcement cooperation and reaffirm their working relationship.
Since the start of the Trump administration, Sheinbaum has been trying to appease the U.S. government’s demands to stop drug cartels or face economic sanctions, as well as see direct military action against cartels. Since then, Sheinbaum has sent to the U.S. dozens of wanted top drug lords and had her federal law enforcement agencies work closely with U.S. authorities to target drug production labs and disrupt smuggling operations. During her news conference, Sheinbaum highlighted various drug seizures and other “successes” in dealing with organized crime; however, the effects of those actions have not been felt in Mexico, where most of the drug cartels continue to operate with almost complete impunity.
Throughout various speeches, Sheinbaum has claimed that she is completely opposed to direct action by U.S. forces on Mexican soil and has claimed that a frontal assault on criminal organizations would violate the rights of individual members of those groups, Breitbart Texas reported.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
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