MEXICO CITY (AP) 鈥 Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that surveillance drone flights by the U.S. government over Mexico are occurring in collaboration with and at the request of her government.
They come as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has increased pressure on Mexico to do more to stop the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl that is smuggled north to the United States.
Earlier this month, Trump threatened, then on Mexican imports that he said were meant to push Mexico to take more action against its drug cartels. Trump also ordered on his first day in office the . Those designations will be published in Thursday鈥檚 edition of the Federal Register, according to a notice Wednesday.
Mexico responded to the tariff threat by to the northern border.
The drone flights were reported Tuesday by the New York Times as a Central Intelligence Agency program aimed at locating fentanyl labs in northwestern Mexico. The flights follow U.S. military statements that it had increased surveillance capabilities along the countries鈥 shared border. The CIA declined to comment in response to questions about the drone flights.
Mexico鈥檚 Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla addressed the flights by U.S. military planes last week, saying that they had not entered Mexican airspace, but that he couldn鈥檛 rule out they were spying because he didn鈥檛 know what they were doing.
Sheinbaum on Wednesday presented a more detailed explanation.
鈥淭hese flights are part of the coordination 鈥 collaborations that have been going on for many years, between the United States government and the Mexican government,鈥 Sheinbaum said at her daily press briefing. 鈥淓very time it is at Mexico鈥檚 request for collaboration, for information to be able to attend to security conditions.鈥
She said the information gathered was shared with Mexican authorities.
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