By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Worthy News) – Mexico’s president unveiled constitutional reforms Thursday amid concerns over possible American military intervention in her country after U.S. President Donald J. Trump designated six Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist” organizations.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned that the “Mexican people will not accept under any circumstances interventions, interference or any other act from abroad that could be harmful to the integrity, independence, and sovereignty of the nation.”
On Thursday, the designation of eight Latin America-based criminal organizations was published in the U.S. Federal Register, carrying out a January 20 executive order by Trump.
The list includes Sinaloa, Jalisco, Zetas, Gulf Cartels, Cartel Unidos, and “La Nueva Familia Michoacana.” Other criminal entities — including the Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua and the Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13 — were also named.
The U.S. hopes the designation, something usually reserved for terrorist groups with political rather than economic objectives, will increase pressure on the groups.
However, Sheinbaum said in comments monitored by Worthy News that she would not accept foreign interference in Mexico’s ongoing battle against drug cartels.
LIMITING ‘FOREIGN AGENTS’
The president seeks to enshrine current limits on the operations of “foreign agents” into the constitution and establish harsher penalties for gun trafficking.
“What we want to make clear in the face of this designation is that we do not negotiate sovereignty,” she warned.
Sheinbaum said Mexico was not consulted when the Trump administration designated the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Terrorist designations against criminal syndicates have sparked debates over national sovereignty and whether such moves could justify extended actions by the U.S. government abroad.
Observers noted that tensions between the two neighbors could escalate if Washington believes it now has broader authority to operate against any cartel activity in Mexican territory.
It is also part of Trump’s plan to crack down on “illegal migration.”
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an extraordinary 2,700-year-old pottery fragment inscribed with Assyrian cuneiform near the Temple Mount — the first written evidence of direct contact between the Assyrian Empire and the Kingdom of Judah ever discovered in the city. The find, announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), offers striking confirmation of the biblical narrative of King Hezekiah’s resistance to Assyrian domination recorded in II Kings 18.
Iranian officials are warning of imminent water rationing—and even the potential evacuation of Tehran—as the nation faces its worst drought in nearly a century.
A Christian widow in Pakistan’s Punjab province is devastated after her married daughter went missing, while elsewhere in the region, a mother of four and a mother of six have also disappeared following alleged abductions by Muslim men, Worthy News learned Saturday.
South Korea, long seen as the democratic opposite of its authoritarian-ruled northern neighbor, faces growing scrutiny for what critics call a widening crackdown on Christian leaders and churches.
Hungary’s prime minister told U.S. President Donald J. Trump on Friday that it would take a miracle for Ukraine to win the war against Russia. Viktor Orbán made the remarks at the White House, where Trump asked him during a joint news conference about the prospects for Kyiv’s victory.
Hungarian prosecutors have requested a two-year suspended prison sentence for Gábor Iványi, a 76-year-old Methodist pastor, once a close confidant of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and several opposition politicians, in a case widely viewed as politically charged.
In a decision that could reshape federal identification standards, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to enforce its policy requiring Americans to list their biological sex–male or female–on passports, rather than self-identified gender.