Trump teases Mexican drug cartels as next potential target for military intervention

President Donald Trump hinted Saturday morning that Mexican drug cartels could be the next target of American military action during a phone interview on Fox News.

American military forces, including Delta Force, protected a law enforcement operation that arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas early Saturday morning, Trump announced in a post on Truth Social. “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host Charlie Hurt asked if Trump was using the takedown of Maduro to send a message to Mexico.

“She’s a good woman, but the cartels are running Mexico. She’s not running Mexico, the cartels are running Mexico,” Trump said, referring to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. “And we can be politically correct and be nice and say … she’s very frightened of the cartels, they’re running Mexico. I’ve asked her numerous times, would you like us to take out the cartels. ‘No, no, no, Mr. President, no, no, no, please.’”

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“So, we have to do something because we lost – the real number is 300,000 people, in my opinion. They like to say 100,000. 100,000 is a lot of people, but the real number is 300,000 people,” Trump continued. “And we lost them to drugs. And they come in through the southern border, mostly the southern border. Plenty come in through Canada, too, by the way, in case you don’t know. But they come in through the southern border, and something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on X that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would be taken to New York to be arraigned on charges stemming from a Marco 2020 indictment on drug trafficking and firearms charges. Trump praised American military personnel for carrying out what he called an “amazing” operation after a four-day delay due to weather.

“I’ll tell you, it was just amazing. What was he [Maduro] doing? He was in a very highly guarded, like a fortress, actually. He was in a fortress,” Trump said. “You know that we had nobody killed, it was amazing. I think we had nobody killed, I have to say, because a couple of guys were hit, but they came back and they’re supposed to be in pretty good shape. But we had nobody killed. We lost no aircraft, everything came back, we got it all back. One of them was hit pretty hard, a helicopter, but we got it back.”

Sheinbaum posted a link to a statement by the Mexican government condemning the operation that captured Maduro.

“The Government of Mexico strongly condemns and rejects the military actions carried out unilaterally in recent hours by armed forces of the United States of America against targets in the territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” the statement said.

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