Trump Says “something will have to be done about Mexico” After Attacking Venezuela, Kidnapping President Maduro

ByMexico Solidarity

This article originally appeared in the January 3, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. In the context of the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the United States, US President Donald Trump made new statements about Mexico, asserting that “something will have to be done” in the face of the power of the drug cartels.

US President Donald Trump dismissed on Saturday that the kidnapping of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife was a message directed at Mexico, but called for “something to be done” against the cartels in the neighboring country.

During an interview with Fox News, journalists asked Trump if the operation against Maduro should also be interpreted as a message directed at Mexico and President Claudia Sheinbaum, referring to previous statements by Vice President JD Vance, who indicated that “the message is quite clear: drug trafficking must be stopped.”

Asked whether the operation, which officially resulted in no American deaths, was also a message to Mexico, through which most of the drugs enter the United States, Trump replied: “That was not the intention.”

“We are very good friends with her,” added President Claudia Sheinbaum.

“She’s a good woman, but the cartels control Mexico. She doesn’t control Mexico.”

Trump responded that he did not intend to send a direct message to the Mexican government and affirmed that he maintains a friendly relationship with the President. However, he immediately asserted that in Mexico, “the cartels run the country,” not its President.

“We are very friendly with her, she is a good woman, but the cartels run Mexico. She doesn’t run Mexico, the cartels run Mexico,” declared the president, who added that Sheinbaum “is very afraid of the cartels.”

The US president also asserted that he has repeatedly raised with the Mexican president the possibility of the United States taking direct action against criminal groups, a proposal that—according to Trump—has been rejected by the Mexican government.

“I’ve asked her many times, ‘Would you like us to eliminate the cartels?’ And she says, ‘No, no, no, Mr. President, please,’” he stated.

“So we have to do something, because in my opinion the real number of deaths [from drug use] is 300,000 a year,” Trump asserted.

Mexico accuses the United States of attracting this flow of drugs because it is the largest consumer market in the world, in addition to allowing the illegal passage of a large number of weapons for organized crime.