President Donald Trump assured that the United States will launch ground military operations against Mexican drug cartels “very soon,” escalating his administration’s campaign to halt cross-border narcotics trafficking.
During a press conference at the White House, Trump also claimed that his administration has nearly eliminated the maritime flow of drugs through operations in the Caribbean and Pacific.
“Very soon, we are going to attack the drugs coming in by land. We know exactly where they come from.”
The announcement follows a persistent push from the Trump administration to label Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Just last month, on January 8, the president first signaled his intent to begin ground operations, when he accused the criminal groups of being responsible for more than 250,000 deaths annually.
Following a discussion between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mexican Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente, the U.S. State Department pressed Mexico for “concrete and verifiable results in dismantling narco-terrorist networks.”
