Trump Says He Asked Mexico to Let U.S. Military In to Fight Cartels

President Trump confirmed on Sunday that he had pressed Mexico’s president to let U.S. troops into the country to help fight drug cartels, an idea she summarily rejected.

Mr. Trump told reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One from Palm Beach, Fla., to Washington that it was “true” he had made the push with President Claudia Sheinbaum. The proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal last week, came at the end of a lengthy phone call between the two leaders on April 16, The Journal said.

Ms. Sheinbaum has also confirmed that Mr. Trump made the suggestion, and that she rejected it. Mexico and the United States can “collaborate,” she recalled telling him, but “with you in your territory and us in ours.”

Mr. Trump said he proposed the idea because the cartels “are horrible people that have been killing people left and right and have been — they’ve made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people.”

He said, “If Mexico wanted help with the cartels, we would be honored to go in and do it. I told her that. I would be honored to go in and do it. The cartels are trying to destroy our country. They’re evil.”

He said, “The president of Mexico is a lovely woman, but she is so afraid of the cartels that she can’t even think straight.”

Mr. Trump has had a better working relationship with Ms. Sheinbaum than with Canada’s leaders. But the relationships with both neighboring countries have been strained over trade and immigration.