FILE PHOTO: Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador looks on as he attends a military parade in celebration of the 109th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution at Zocalo Square in Mexico City, Mexico November 20, 2019. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
November 27, 2019
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday rejected “interventionism” after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was working to designate the Latin American country’s drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
Cartels “will be” designated and he had been working for 90 days on the process, Trump said in comments on Tuesday to former Fox News host, Bill O’Reilly.
Lopez Obrador said Mexico would take up the issue after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday and that he had asked his foreign minister to lead talks.
“Cooperation, yes, intervention, no” Lopez Obrador said in a morning news conference when asked about Trump’s comments.
Once a particular group is designated as a terrorist organization, it is illegal under U.S. law for people in the United States to knowingly offer support and its members cannot enter the country and may be deported.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said at the weekend that such a designation could, under U.S. law, enable the United States to act directly against the threat if it so chose.
(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Dave Graham and Bernadette Baum)
