In the context of the US kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, US President Donald Trump made new statements regarding Mexico, asserting that “something will have to be done” to address the power of drug cartels.
US President Donald Trump dismissed on Saturday the notion that the kidnapping of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife was a message directed at Mexico, but called for “something to be done” against the cartels in the neighboring country.
During an interview with Fox News, journalists asked Trump if the operation against Maduro should also be interpreted as a message directed at Mexico and President Claudia Sheinbaum, referring to previous statements by Vice President J.D. Vance, who indicated that “the message is quite clear: drug trafficking must be stopped.”
Asked whether the operation, which officially resulted in no American deaths, was also a message to Mexico, the entry point for most drugs into the United States, Trump replied, “That wasn’t the intention.”
“We’re very friendly with her,” he added, referring to President Claudia Sheinbaum.
“She’s a good woman, but the cartels control Mexico. She doesn’t control Mexico.”
Trump responded that he didn’t intend to send a direct message to the Mexican government and affirmed his friendly relationship with the president. However, he immediately asserted that in Mexico, “the cartels run the country,” not its president.
“We’re very friendly with her, she’s a good woman, but the cartels run Mexico. She doesn’t run Mexico, the cartels run Mexico,” declared the president, who added that Sheinbaum “is very scared of the cartels.”
The US president also asserted that he has repeatedly raised with the Mexican president the possibility of the United States taking direct action against criminal groups, a proposal that—according to Trump—has been rejected by the Mexican government.
“I’ve asked her many times, ‘Would you like us to eliminate the cartels?’ And she says, ‘No, no, no, Mr. President, please,’” he stated.
“So we have to do something, because in my opinion the real number of deaths [from drug use] is 300,000 a year,” Trump affirmed.
Mexico accuses the United States of attracting this flow of drugs because it is the world’s largest consumer market, in addition to allowing the illegal passage of a large number of weapons for organized crime.
Source: jornada
