During a speech delivered from the Rose Garden on May 8, U.S. President Donald Trump continued his escalatory threats against Mexico. “We have a problem because the cartels rule Mexico, and nobody else,” Trump claimed. “And, you know, we lose 200,000 people a year through this poison that pours into our country,” he added.
Trump had said earlier in the week regarding drug cartel activity in Mexico: “If they’re not gonna do the job, we’re gonna do the job.”
According to the Latin Times, the Trump administration published the 2026 United States Counterterrorism Strategy on May 6, which makes the same point. The United States will pursue its campaign against drug cartels “in concert with local governments when they are willing and able to work with us,” the report states. “If they cannot, or will not, we will still take whatever action is necessary to protect our country, especially if the government in question is complicit with the cartels.”
Further, AP reports that the administration has begun conducting a review of the 53 Mexican consulates in the United States, a move that could lead some of them to be closed, a State Department official said May 7. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Dylan Johnson said, “The Department of State is constantly reviewing all aspects of American foreign relations to ensure they are in line with the President’s America First foreign policy agenda and advance American interests.”