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The approximately 15-minute call came after Sheinbaum said
Friday she had requested dialogue with the Trump administration
at the end of a week in which he had said he was ready to
confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation
that cartels were running Mexico.
Trump has repeatedly offered to send the U.S. military after the
cartels and Sheinbaum has always declined, but after the U.S.
removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s comments
about Mexico, Cuba and Greenland carried new weight.
“He (Trump) asked me my opinion about what they had done in
Venezuela and I told him very clearly that our constitution is
very clear, that we do not agree with interventions and that was
it,” Sheinbaum said.
Trump “still insisted that if we ask for it, they could help”
with military forces, which Sheinbaum said she again rejected.
“We told him, so far it’s going very well, it’s not necessary,
and furthermore there is Mexico’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity and he understood.”
In an interview with Fox News aired last Thursday, Trump said,
“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.
The cartels are running Mexico. It’s very sad to watch.”
Sheinbaum said Monday the two leaders agreed to continue working
together.
Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente spoke
Sunday with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Marco
Rubio. Rubio asked for “tangible results” and more cooperation
to dismantle the cartels, according to a statement from the U.S.
State Department.
Sheinbaum said Mexico shared those results, including a
significant drop in homicides, falling U.S. fentanyl seizures
and fentanyl overdose deaths.
Experts still see U.S. intervention in Mexico as unlikely
because Mexico is doing what the U.S. asks and is a critical
economic partner, but expect Trump to continue using such
rhetoric to maintain pressure on Mexico to do more.
Sheinbaum said the two leaders did not speak about Cuba, which
Trump threatened Sunday. Mexico is an important ally of the
island nation, including selling it oil that it will need even
more desperately now that the Trump administration says it will
not allow any more oil shipments from Venezuela to Cuba.
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