Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum revealed on Saturday that she had rejected President Donald Trump‘s offer of troops to help combat drug trafficking in Mexico, saying, “Sovereignty is not for sale.”
Responding to a Friday report from The Wall Street Journal that Trump was pressuring Mexico to allow for further U.S. involvement in combating drug cartels, Sheinbaum described a tense phone call shared with her northern counterpart last month.
“He said, ‘How can we help you fight drug trafficking? I propose that the United States military come in and help you.’ And you know what I said to him? ‘No, President Trump,’” Sheinbaum told supporters gathered in eastern Mexico on Saturday.
She continued, “Sovereignty is not for sale. Sovereignty is loved and defended.”
According to the WSJ report, the 45-minute phone call, which took place on April 16, saw Trump push for the U.S. to not just send troops into Mexico but to take a leading role in the fight against the country’s drug cartels. Sheinbaum responded that while her administration would cooperate when it came to intelligence-sharing, it would not accept a direct military presence.
Trump has previously asserted that he would take unilateral action if Mexico failed to dismantle the cartels, telling Fox News last month after his phone call with Sheinbaum, “Mexico is very, very afraid of the cartels. We want to help her. We want to help Mexico, because you can’t run a country like that. You just can’t.”
A White House spokesperson said at the time that while the conversation was productive, “Mexico still must do more to protect Americans from dangerous foreign terrorist organizations and the drugs and violence they flood into communities on both sides of the border.”
Trump has overseen an increase in military presence along the southern border since his inauguration, designed to assist other government agencies in combating immigration.
In a presidential memorandum published last month, the president laid out a plan to have the Department of Defense claim jurisdiction over a strip of public land along the border, known as the Roosevelt Reservation, in order to enable further military activities like border wall construction and the placement of detection equipment.
While Sheinbaum has cooperated with Trump on matters of immigration and trade—Trump agreed to a pause on his tariffs in exchange for Mexico reinforcing their side of the border with 10,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard back in February—she is now making it clear that U.S. military presence in Mexico is where she draws the line. “We can work together, but you in your territory and us in ours,“ said Sheinbaum.
“We will never accept the presence of the United States military in our territory,” she declared.
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