Sheinbaum has denounced remarks from DEA head Terry Cole as a baseless ‘political assertion’ about Mexico.
Printed On 15 Jul 2026
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has rejected a declare from the pinnacle of the USA Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that there’s a lethal connection between her authorities and the nation’s influential felony cartels.
Throughout her every day information convention on Wednesday, Sheinbaum pushed again, saying the DEA’s remarks appeared “extra like a political assertion than one backed by proof”.
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She added that the DEA ought to give attention to combating drug trafficking, distribution and cash laundering inside its personal nation. The US, she identified, is the world’s largest marketplace for illicit medicine.
Sheinbaum has repeatedly confronted accusations below US President Donald Trump that her nation is “run” by cartels.
A number of Trump officers have mirrored that assertion. On Tuesday, as an illustration, DEA Administrator Terry Cole stated the Mexican authorities and cartel networks had been “one and the identical”.
The Mexican authorities responded by saying Cole’s remarks didn’t mirror its efforts to work with the US to fight cartels.
It added that Mexico continues to be keen to collaborate with the US to fight crime, so long as its sovereignty was revered.
Since Trump took workplace for a second time period, Sheinbaum has confronted strain from her northern neighbour to crack down on crime in her nation.
In response, she has pledged shut cooperation with the US, whereas pushing again in opposition to Trump’s militaristic strategy to Latin America.
Her administration has repeatedly rejected the prospect of the US conducting navy operations on its soil with out the federal authorities’s consent.
Initially, Trump and Sheinbaum appeared to forge heat relations, with the US president praising his Mexican counterpart as “marvellous”.
However Sheinbaum has turn into more and more vocal in her criticism of the Trump administration in latest months.
In April, as an illustration, she rebuked the US for issuing an indictment in opposition to Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha, amid allegations his marketing campaign labored with the Sinaloa Cartel to violently affect the 2021 gubernatorial election.
Sheinbaum stated no proof had been produced to again the US’s declare in opposition to Rocha. She additionally argued that rooting out corruption was a home situation, not a global one.
Earlier this week, Mexico filed felony complaints with US prosecutors over the deaths of Mexican nationals swept up in Trump’s mass deportation marketing campaign.
Sheinbaum’s remarks on Wednesday got here because the US Division of the Treasury introduced that two extra felony organisations in Mexico — the Juarez Cartel and Los Viagras — had been designated “international terrorist organizations and specifically designated international terrorists”.
The Trump administration has made such designations up to now, because it has sought to border its actions in Latin America as a struggle on so-called “narco-terrorists”.
