US President Donald Trump secretly signed an executive order, directing the Pentagon to prepare for possible military action against Latin American drug cartels, following Washington’s earlier move to classify several narcotics trafficking groups as “terrorist” organizations earlier this year.The New York Times, citing state media, reported that Trump directed the Pentagon to begin using military force against the designated cartels, while the Wall Street Journal said the Defense Department was told to prepare options for such action. Possible measures under discussion include deploying special forces and providing intelligence support, with coordination from foreign partners.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday responded to the reports by insisting there would be “no invasion of Mexico.”“We were informed that this executive order was coming and that it had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel or any institution in our territory,” Sheinbaum told her regular morning conference, as quoted by AFP.In March, Trump vowed to “wage war” on Mexico’s drug cartels, accusing them of rape, murder, and “posing a grave threat” to national security. The previous month, the US had designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and six other Latin American drug trafficking groups as “global terrorist” organizations.The Trump administration has since added Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns, which has been accused of shipping hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States over two decades. On January 20, his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order creating a process for such designations, saying the cartels “constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organised crime.”
