The president’s comment comes after Mexico’s leader said she rebuffed his offer.
President Donald Trump on May 4 confirmed reports that he made an offer to send U.S. troops to Mexico to fight the country’s drug cartels, after the Mexican president said she declined the offer.
“It’s true,” Trump
told reporters on Air Force One. “The cartels are trying to destroy our country. They’re evil!”
Trump then suggested that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is being pressured by drug cartels operating in her country after she told an audience over the weekend that she told the U.S. president that Mexico’s “territory is inviolable” and their “sovereignty is inviolable.”
“The president of Mexico is a lovely woman,” Trump said, “but she is so afraid of the cartels that she can’t even think straight.”
Sheinbaum said that U.S. troops operating inside Mexico were going too far, adding that she told Trump that their two countries “can work together,” but only in their respective territories.
Since Trump took office in January, the U.S. Northern Command has surged troops and equipment to the border, increased manned surveillance flights to monitor
fentanyl trafficking along the border, and sought expanded authority for U.S. Special Forces to work closely with Mexican forces conducting operations against cartels. That follows an order issued by Trump to increase the military’s role in stemming the flow of deadly opioids and illegal immigrants.
Aside from those orders, Trump in February designated major Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, along with Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and Salvadoran gang MS-13. And last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately
announced that two Haitian gangs were designated as terrorist organizations.
After Trump announced he would declare cartels as terrorist organizations, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
said in a January Fox News interview that the government is not ruling out taking military action against the Mexican criminal organizations. So far, there has not been any indication that the U.S. military will conduct activities or strikes inside Mexico.
“All options will be on the table if we’re dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border,” he said at the time.
“They are bad news,” Trump said on May 4, referring to the cartels. “If Mexico wanted help with the cartels, we would be honored to go in and do it. I told her that. I would be honored to go in and do it. The cartels are trying to destroy our country.”
The White House has also linked its efforts to reduce the flow of fentanyl to Trump’s tariff plan, saying he wants to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable for reducing the flow of the synthetic opioid into the United States. Federal officials
say that fentanyl—which is up to 100 times more potent than morphine and is the leading cause of death for Americans aged between 18 and 45—caused tens of thousands of overdose deaths between June 2023 and June 2024.
For Mexico and Canada, 25 percent tariffs were imposed earlier this year. Trump last month raised duties on China—which officials have long said is
responsible for manufacturing the precursor chemicals to make fentanyl that ultimately ends up in the United States—to 145 percent.
It’s been estimated that more than 30,000 people have been murdered each year in Mexico since 2018, in part because of cartel- and gang-related violence,
according to the Council on Foreign Relations in a report released in February.
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for additional comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
