Land strikes against drug cartels underway, says Trump

Following a maritime attack in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, US President Donald Trump said that land strikes against drug cartels were underway.

Trump.in the interview session on Fox News said, “We are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico.”

The comments are against the backdrop of the surprised captures of Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro last weekend, the culmination of months of mounting US military and economic pressure on the leftist leader.

As part of that campaign, United States has killed more than 100 people in strikes on alleged drug boats since September, and Trump has also said that the US forces conducted a land strike on a docking area for such vessels in Venezuela.

But strikes on cartels in Mexico would mark a significant US military escalation.

The left-wing interim government in Caracas has condemned US strikes on Venezuela as a threat to regional stability.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that the Americas “do not belong” to any power, after Trump invoked Washington’s “dominance” of the hemisphere after seizing Maduro.

Trump said on Sunday he was pushing Sheinbaum to let him send US troops to tackle drug cartels in Mexico, an offer he said she had previously rebuffed.