Trump signals possible US military action in Mexico against drug cartels
Photo: US President Donald Trump (Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump, in an interview with Fox News, said that the United States will soon begin “on-the-ground” combat operations in Mexico. According to the American president, the operations will target cartels that are allegedly "running Mexico."
"We are going to start now, hitting land with regard to the cartels. The cartels is runnning Mexico. It’s very sad to watch, see what happened to their country," he said.
Trump added that "we've knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water," referring to a series of strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela. He also claimed that cartels “kill 300,000 people in the United States every year.”
“Drugs… It's horrible. Its devestated families. You lose a child or a parent. I mean, parents are dying too with drugs. So we’ve done a really good job,” he said.
At the same time, the US president said the US border is now closed, claiming that before his presidency ,it had been “a complete mess for years.”
"I did it for the first time very quickly. And this time I did it even better, because it was a bigger mess. It was a border like no other, probably in the history of the world. There has never been a border like that one, anybody can walk into your country. Border closed. You can’t come in. And nobody comes in. Nobody even tries," he insisted.
It should be recalled that after a successful operation in Venezuela on January 3, during which the country’s dictator Nicolás Maduro was captured, Trump issued threats toward Mexico and its president, Claudia Sheinbaum. At the time, the US president also claimed that Mexico was “run by cartels” and that “something must be done about it.”
Sheinbaum, for her part, made it clear that she does not believe Trump’s threats of invading Mexico are truly serious. She added that she is ready to cooperate with the United States in combating drug trafficking and condemned the US operation in Venezuela.
