Rubio meets Mexico president as Trump flexes army may

[ad_1] MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico and the USA on Wednesday agreed throughout U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s go to to maintain collaborating on cross-border safety, together with preventing the trafficking of medicine, weapons and gas, however made clear it will be executed from their respective sides of the border, respecting one another’s sovereignty at a time of heightened considerations over U.S. intervention within the area.

What had initially been marketed because the signing of a broad safety settlement advanced into the potential for a memorandum of understanding, however ultimately was a reaffirmation of the collaboration Mexico and the U.S. have mentioned they’ve been doing all alongside.

The priorities stay stopping fentanyl and different medication from flowing into the U.S., and stopping high-powered weapons purchased in U.S. gun outlets from being smuggled into Mexico, whereas persevering with to manage migration, which has fallen dramatically. The brand new improvement was the institution of a “high-level implementation group” that will be the mechanism for that continued collaboration.

“It is a high-level group that may meet and coordinate regularly to ensure that all of the issues we're engaged on, all of the issues we've got agreed to work on, are taking place, are being carried out,” Rubio mentioned.

“It’s the closest cooperation we’ve ever had, perhaps between any nation, however undoubtedly between the U.S. and Mexico,” Rubio mentioned.

Mexico International Affairs Secretary Ramón de la Fuente mentioned, “It’s elementary to point out to U.S. society, Mexican society, that sure, fashions of cooperation, of collaboration will be constructed that work, that give outcomes.”

Rubio spoke after assembly with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday to emphasize the significance the U.S. locations on cooperating with Washington on Western Hemisphere safety, commerce and migration. Rubio will go to Ecuador on Thursday on his third trip to Latin America since taking workplace. Sheinbaum has voiced fears of the U.S. encroaching on Mexican sovereignty.

Gunboat diplomacy The assembly got here a day after President Donald Trump dramatically stepped up his administration’s army function within the Caribbean with what he referred to as a deadly strike on a Venezuelan drug cartel .

Trump has alienated many within the area with persistent calls for and threats of sweeping tariffs and large sanctions for refusing to observe his lead, significantly on migration and the fight against drug cartels . Prone to heighten these considerations is the U.S. having deployed warships to the Caribbean and elsewhere off Latin America and saying a lethal strike on an alleged Tren de Aragua gang vessel carrying narcotics.

Rubio continued defending the strike with out addressing particulars, together with whether or not these aboard the boat have been warned earlier than being fired upon.

“The president, below his authority as commander in chief, has a proper below exigent circumstances to remove imminent threats to the USA,” Rubio mentioned.

His Mexican counterpart, de la Fuente, emphasised his nation’s choice for “nonintervention, peaceable answer of conflicts.”

The U.S. has an advanced legacy of sticking its hand in Latin American affairs, and American army interventions — significantly through the Chilly Battle — within the area performed a serious half in destabilizing governments and paving the way in which for coups in nations like Guatemala and Chile.

In recent times, the U.S. has taken a extra delicate strategy, offering overseas help to many nations, together with coaching safety forces, however not making direct strikes like what was seen Tuesday in Caribbean waters.

Mexico’s president pushes again on Trump saying she’s not prepared to focus on cartels Trump has demanded, and to this point won, some concessions from Sheinbaum’s authorities, which is raring to defuse his tariff threats, though she has fiercely defended Mexico’s sovereignty.

Sheinbaum once more rejected Trump’s suggestion that she is afraid of confronting Mexico’s cartels as a result of they've a lot energy.

“We respect so much the Mexico-United States relationship, President Trump, and no, it’s not true this affirmation that he makes,” she mentioned.

Talking to reporters Wednesday earlier than assembly with Rubio, she mentioned that what her administration deliberate to conform to with the USA is a “cooperation program about border safety and the applying of the legislation inside the framework of our (respective) sovereignties.”

In a State of the Nation deal with this week marking her first year in office , she mentioned, “Underneath no circumstance will we settle for interventions, interference or another act from overseas that's detrimental to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the nation.”

Sheinbaum has gone after Mexican drug cartels and their fentanyl manufacturing extra aggressively than her predecessor. The federal government has sent the National Guard to the northern border and delivered 55 cartel figures lengthy needed by U.S. authorities to the Trump administration.

Sheinbaum had spoken for a while about how Mexico was finalizing a complete safety settlement with the State Division that, amongst different issues, was supposed to incorporate plans for a “joint investigation group” to fight the flow of fentanyl and the drug’s precursors into the U.S. and weapons from north to south.

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Related Press writers María Verza in Mexico Metropolis and Farnoush Amiri on the United Nations contributed to this report.

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