BREAKING: Mexico’s President fires back at Trump’s cartel war threats
While Donald Trump was busy rallying his handpicked coalition of right-wing leaders at his Florida golf resort and threatening military action against Mexican cartels, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had a pointed message for Washington: clean up your own house first.
Sheinbaum, speaking at her Monday press briefing, pushed back firmly against Trump’s latest saber-rattling, pointing out that roughly 75% of the weapons used by Mexican criminal organizations were smuggled in from the United States, citing the U.S. Department of Justice’s own data. Her message was blunt: if the guns stopped flowing south, the cartels would lose much of their firepower..
Trump had spent the weekend at his Doral golf club hosting what he dubbed the “Americas Counter Cartel Coalition,” a gathering of mostly right-wing heads of state. Notably absent were the elected leaders of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, the three largest nations in Latin America. During his remarks, Trump took a swipe at Sheinbaum, mocking her repeated rejection of direct U.S. military operations on Mexican soil by imitating her voice in a falsetto impression before the crowd.
Sheinbaum didn’t take the bait emotionally, but she didn’t back down either. She reiterated that foreign military operations inside Mexico would violate her country’s sovereignty, a line she has held firmly since Trump began his second term. She also noted that addressing America’s own drug addiction crisis and domestic production of methamphetamine would do far more to reduce cartel power than missiles and military coalitions.
Mexico, for its part, has been anything but passive. Over the past year, Mexican authorities have arrested hundreds of trafficking suspects, dismantled clandestine drug labs, extradited cartel figures to U.S. custody, and last month killed notorious kingpin “El Mencho” in a raid on his mountain hideout. Sheinbaum’s government has delivered real results while Trump has delivered theatrical press conferences.