Caption: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, centre, is welcomed by Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs Juan Ramon de la Fuente, right, upon his arrival at Felipe Angeles International Airport in Mexico City on September 2, 2025

 

MEXICO CITY – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday, a day after the United States dramatically escalated pressure on cartels with what it said was a targeted strike near Venezuela.

Rubio is scheduled to hold talks with Sheinbaum at 10am local time (1600 GMT) before a joint news conference with Foreign Secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente, according to the US State Department.

Few expect the United States, even under the mercurial President Donald Trump, to carry out a strike similar to Tuesday’s in the Caribbean on the soil of Mexico, where Sheinbaum has focused on cooperation in her country’s complicated relationship with Washington.

But Tuesday’s attack, and occasional heated rhetoric by Trump’s allies against the United States’ southern neighbour, have been enough to raise alarm bells in Mexico.

Sheinbaum, addressing reporters on Tuesday before the strike, said that any US military “intervention” in Mexico was a red line.

Mexico will not “accept violations of our territory,” she said.

“We don’t accept subordination. Simply collaboration between nations on equal terms.”

Trump said that the United States killed 11 people when it blew up a speedboat in the Caribbean that was leaving Venezuela and was allegedly affiliated with Tren de Aragua, a gang designated by Washington as a terrorist organisation.

AFP has not been able to verify the number of people in the boat and their identities.

The attack marked a major escalation of US action after Trump signed an executive order authorising military action against drug cartels.

Trump has “been very clear that he’s going to use the full power of America, the full might of the United States, to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they’re operating from,” Rubio said Tuesday.

But Venezuela is a unique case, as the United States does not recognise the legitimacy of President Nicolas Maduro, a leftist firebrand whose last election in 2024 was widely seen internationally and by the opposition as riddled with irregularities.

Sheinbaum, who also comes from the political left, has sought a pragmatic relationship with Trump, who has voiced respect for her despite his past harsh comments about Mexicans.

Like her predecessor and fellow leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum has largely cooperated with Trump in his key priority of curbing migration to the United States.

Mexico has stepped up enforcement on its borders in recent years — including its own southern border, a gateway for Central American migrants to the United States.

Sheinbaum has also taken steps to curb imports from China, whose manufacturers have eyed Mexico as a way into the US market.

The Trump administration has already imposed a slew of new sanctions in hopes of weakening major cartels in Mexico.

Trump blames the cartels for the flow of fentanyl, the powerful painkiller behind an overdose epidemic in the United States.

Sheinbaum, in turn, has pursued legal action against US gunmakers over violence inside Mexico.

Mexico, which has tighter controls on guns, says that between 200,000 and 750,000 weapons manufactured by US gunmakers are smuggled across the border from the United States every year, many of which are found at crime scenes.