Overview
- American officials are pushing for U.S. special-operations forces or CIA officers to accompany Mexican units on raids targeting suspected fentanyl labs, according to reporting cited by multiple outlets.
- President Claudia Sheinbaum has publicly rejected foreign troop operations on Mexican soil under the Constitution and has proposed expanded intelligence-sharing and greater U.S. access to Mexican command centers instead.
- U.S. advisors are already embedded in Mexican military command posts, and CIA drone flights over Mexico have supported locating labs and tracking chemical precursors, U.S. officials say.
- After a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente, both governments set a Jan. 23 meeting of the bilateral Security Implementation Group and a ministerial in Washington in February.
- The State Department’s Western Hemisphere bureau stated that incremental progress is unacceptable and that upcoming engagements must deliver concrete, verifiable reductions in cartel networks and fentanyl trafficking.