US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offers the thumbs up upon his arrival at Felipe Angeles Worldwide Airport in Mexico Metropolis on September 2, 2025. Agence France-Presse
MEXICO CITY — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday opened a go to to Mexico which warned in opposition to violations of its sovereignty, as the USA stated it carried out a lethal strike on a drug-smuggling boat from Venezuela.
Rubio is paying the highest-ranking go to to the US neighbor since President Donald Trump returned to workplace in January with an agenda of cracking down on migration and drug cartels.
Mexico up to now has navigated the treacherous terrain with Trump, with President Claudia Sheinbaum searching for to keep away from confrontation.
READ: Trump: US forces ‘shot’ drug-carrying boat that had left Venezuela
Sheinbaum will meet Wednesday with Rubio, who was personally welcomed on the tarmac beneath overcast skies by Mexican International Secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente.
However hours earlier than Rubio’s arrival, Sheinbaum stated she would draw a line on US navy “intervention” in Mexico.
“The USA will not be going to behave alone as a result of there may be an understanding,” she instructed reporters.
“We’ve been working for months on an understanding to collaborate on safety issues,” she stated.
Mexico won’t “settle for violations of our territory, we don’t settle for subordination. Merely collaboration between nations on equal phrases.”
READ: US warships with 1,200 missiles concentrating on Venezuela – Maduro
Trump stated the USA killed 11 folks Tuesday by destroying a speedboat allegedly from a gang linked to Venezuela’s leftist chief Nicolas Maduro.
Rubio, talking to reporters in Miami earlier than departure, urged it was not the final US assault and warned that the “days of performing with impunity” had been over.
Trump has “been very clear that he’s going to make use of the total energy of America, the total may of the USA, to tackle and eradicate these drug cartels, regardless of the place they’re working from,” Rubio stated.
The USA doesn’t acknowledge Maduro and few count on related assaults on Mexican soil, even when a few of Trump’s allies in Congress have mused of struggle.
Sheinbaum focuses on cooperation
Sheinbaum hails from Mexico’s left however has been capable of earn the respect of Trump, very similar to her predecessor and ideological ally Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador did in Trump’s first time period.
Mexico has cooperated on enforcement of the border in opposition to US-bound migrants, who largely come from Central America or elsewhere slightly than Mexico, and extradited folks needed by the USA.
She has additionally taken steps to curb imports from China, whose producers have eyed Mexico as a method into the US market.
“President Sheinbaum from the start determined that she goes to hunt a cooperative and collaborative relationship” with the Trump administration, stated Jason Marczak, vp and senior director on the Atlantic Council’s Latin America Middle.
“She has been emphatic in defending Mexican sovereignty, however on the similar time reaching out to the USA and seeing the place they will work collectively,” he stated.
The steadiness within the relationship marks a pointy distinction to Trump’s stress campaigns in opposition to the outspoken leftist leaders of two different Latin American powers, Brazil and Colombia.
Trump earlier this yr even took the uncharacteristic step of crediting her with an thought on combatting fentanyl, the painkilling drug behind an overdose epidemic in the USA.
“I do know every little thing, and I by no means study something from anyone, and I spoke to this lady, and as quickly as she stated it, I stated, ‘Precisely, what a fantastic thought,’” stated Trump, who has additionally commented favorably on the looks of Mexico’s first feminine president.
Sheinbaum is driving excessive in polls with the assist of three-quarters of Mexicans, partially over how she has managed Trump, who rose to political prominence vowing to erect a wall to seal off the Mexican border.
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The picture of the USA has deteriorated extra sharply in Mexico than in some other nation since Trump returned, in keeping with a Pew Analysis Middle survey printed in July, which discovered that 91 % of Mexicans lacked confidence in Trump. /dl
