President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico denied that the United States would use its military in her country on Friday, responding to news that President Trump had directed the Pentagon to target drug cartels that the United States considers terrorist organizations.
“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military. We cooperate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out,” she said. “It is not part of any agreement, far from it. When it has been brought up, we have always said no.”
It remains unclear what plans the Pentagon is drawing up for possible action, and the order raises legal questions about several issues. Mexican officials have in public and in private flatly rejected suggestions of U.S. military action against drug cartels on Mexican territory.
Speaking in her morning news conference, Ms. Sheinbaum said she would read President Trump’s order, but denied there were any risks that the U.S. military could invade Mexico.
If the Pentagon plans to use forces in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, it could strain ties to their worst point in decades, at a time when the countries around the region are trying to work closely with the United States on major issues like migration and combating the drug trade.
Depending on what the United States does, Mexico could pull back its cooperation on issues like security and migration if the White House acts unilaterally, according to three people familiar with the government’s thinking.
Those people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
“They need Mexico’s cooperation and they need Mexico’s state and society to be functioning. This isn’t Afghanistan, where the state is broken, and you can do whatever you want as there’s a void,” said Arturo Rocha, who resigned late last year from the Mexican foreign ministry, where he handled relations with the United States.
“This has always been Mexico’s deepest fear, this constant sense that we could be invaded by the U.S. again,” he added. “It would have major implications in terms of cooperation with the U.S. going forward. The president has been clear that our sovereignty is a redline.”
Mexican officials thought they had turned a corner with the Trump administration in fighting the drug trade, having launched an aggressive crackdown on the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s largest producers of fentanyl. The cartel, one of Mexico’s oldest and most powerful, has suffered serious losses as President Claudia Sheinbaum has deployed hundreds of troops to fight it.
American officials seemed pleased with the progress, and had touted a 50 percent drop in fentanyl seizures in recent months compared to the same months last year. It is unclear if the decrease is because the cartels are feeling pressure and curbing production or finding new, innovative ways to evade detection.
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, boasted late last month that the drop in fentanyl seizures was “due to a secure border” and “increased collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico.”
Under Mr. Trump and Ms. Sheinbaum’s “leadership, cartels are going bankrupt and our countries are safer because of it,” Mr. Johnson said on the social media platform X.
Washington has also cooperated with Mexico on migration, which hit record lows earlier this year and was a central issue of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaigns.
The U.S.-Mexican border has been quiet over the last year in large part because Mexico stepped up its efforts to stop migrants from crossing its territory. June saw the lowest border crossings on record, according to Customs and Border Protection data, with 6,072 migrants intercepted at the southwest border with Mexico compared to 83,532 for the same month in 2024.
If Mr. Trump pursues a more aggressive U.S. military posture in Mexico, such as deploying American troops or using attack drones, it could be politically disastrous for Ms. Sheinbaum. Mexicans are extremely sensitive to the U.S. military because of the history of American intervention, war and taking territory.
Ms. Sheinbaum has enjoyed high approval ratings, hovering around 75 percent, but there are deep divides and competition for power inside her ruling party. While Mexicans have supported her efforts to negotiate with the Trump administration on a range of issues from migration to tariffs, U.S. military action inside Mexico would likely hit her hard, analysts say.
It could also undermine her ability to negotiate with Mr. Trump on future bilateral issues, they added.
The drug war in Mexico has historically been spearheaded by the Department of Justice and its counter narcotics agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration. But that effort has been in close collaboration with Mexican authorities.
And the secrecy around the Pentagon directive has raised questions over whether the United States may use unilateral military force, without Mexico’s prior knowledge — a scenario that could hurt the painstakingly built trust between the authorities in the two countries.
“The short-term benefits will be far outweighed by the long-term costs,” said Craig Deare, a former military attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico in the 1990s.
“Mexico has mistrusted us for decades, and there was this thawing in the relationship that began in the 1990s,” he said. “That mistrust could snap back now.”
Mr. Deare cautioned that there is little indication of what type of action the military could take, whether using lethal drones or deploying forces.
The United States has long operated drones to hunt for drug production and smuggling networks inside Mexico, but those covert programs were not authorized to take lethal action.
Mexican officials have warned the Trump administration that the lethal drone programs the United States runs in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where terrorist groups are often targeted in rural areas, would face far different circumstances and risks.
In Mexico, drug cartels are often embedded in dense urban centers, raising the chances of civilian casualties, and there are many more dual U.S.-Mexican citizens and their relatives living in places that could be targeted.
“If the U.S. does this without Mexico’s consent, it will set the relationship back a hundred years,” said Todd Robinson, who served as the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs at the State Department.
He said the U.S. military does not have the relationships that other parts of the U.S. government had developed with the Mexican authorities over many years.
“We worked together to build cases, by sharing intelligence, that is what builds a long-term relationship,” he said, adding “there is no way you get a good relationship if you shove the U.S. military down their throat.”
Maria Abi-Habib is an investigative correspondent reporting on Latin America and is based in Mexico City.
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