Mexico City — Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has forcefully rejected the prospect of any United States military presence on her country’s soil, condemning Donald Trump’s latest order authorizing American forces to pursue Latin American drug cartels as an “absolutely unacceptable violation of sovereignty.”
The political standoff erupted after revelations that the Trump administration quietly signed a sweeping executive directive labeling major cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations” and empowering the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to take action “at sea and on foreign soil.” Mexican officials have blasted the move as a reckless provocation that risks turning anti-narcotics cooperation into a full-scale diplomatic rupture.
Sheinbaum’s remarks left little room for ambiguity. “There will be no invasion of our country, not now, not ever,” she declared during a televised address. “Mexico does not accept foreign boots on our land, under any pretext.” Her government has pledged to reinforce border sovereignty and is already coordinating with regional allies to oppose what it describes as an alarming precedent for US military adventurism in Latin America.
Critics in Mexico and abroad say Trump’s order reeks of neo-colonial arrogance, a unilateral maneuver that treats Latin American nations as little more than extensions of US security doctrine. Analysts warn it could destabilize existing security pacts and dangerously blur the lines between counter-narcotics operations and armed intervention, echoing Washington’s worst Cold War-era intrusions in the hemisphere.
The directive, championed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is being sold in Washington as a bold step to “neutralize armed terrorist organizations.” In reality, Mexican commentators argue, it opens the door to unchecked US militarism and undermines decades of bilateral cooperation that, despite flaws, relied on mutual consent rather than brute force.
According to The Guardian, Sheinbaum’s rejection followed the leak of Trump’s classified order, which explicitly grants the US military latitude to operate against cartels without host nation approval. The report underscores the widening gulf between Mexico’s insistence on sovereignty and Washington’s increasingly aggressive posture, a clash that could reshape the political calculus across the Americas.
