U.S. Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

By KELIN DILLON

On Thursday, Jan. 16, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (CSP) responded to U.S. Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio’s statements that Mexico and the United States should work together on combating organized crime, saying in her daily morning press conference that “Mexico is ready to collaborate.”

During his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Jan.15, Rubio publicly said he would prefer to work hand-in-hand with Mexico against drug cartels rather than use military force to combat the organized crime groups.

“These sophisticated transnational terrorist organizations have operational and functional control over huge swaths of areas that border the United States of America,” Rubio said at the time. “It is important for us not just to go after these groups but to identify them and call them for what they are, which is terroristic in their nature.”

“I think there’s a lot we can and we’ll continue to do in close partnership with our allies in Mexico,” continued the nominee. “I think there’s more they can do as well to confront this challenge, and my preference would be, from the Department of State’s perspective, my preference would be that we can work with the Mexicans on this issue cooperatively because it is impacting their nation as much as ours.”

However, Rubio did not rule out the possibility of the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump designating Mexican drug trafficking organizations as terrorist groups while noting the potential complications that would come with said action.

For her part, Sheinbaum characterized Rubio’s statement as “very good” and confirmed her willingness to collaborate with the United States during Thursday’s press conference.

“The U.S. State Department prioritizes coordination with the Mexican government, and that is what we have been saying, that to address migration problems, security problems, drug trafficking, the best thing is coordination at the highest level and that, while respecting our sovereignty, we can collaborate, coordinate to reduce the incidence of crime in Mexico, to prevent the passage of weapons from the United States to Mexico,” said the Mexican federal executive.

However, CSP made sure to note her disapproval of the U.S. government potentially classifying cartels as terrorist organizations.