MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's president on Tuesday ruled out allowing U.S. strikes against cartels on Mexican soil, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was willing to do whatever it takes to stop drugs entering the U.S.
“It’s not going to happen,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said.
“He (Trump) has suggested it on various occasions or he has said, ‘we offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups,’” she said. “But I have told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.”
Sheinbaum said she had said this to Trump and to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on previous occasions and that they have understood.
“Would I want strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” Trump said Monday, adding that he’s “not happy with Mexico.”
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico shared a video on X later Monday that included previous comments from Rubio saying that the U.S. would not take unilateral action in Mexico.
Meanwhile, Mexican and U.S. diplomats were trying to sort out Tuesday what may have been an actual U.S. incursion.
On Monday, men arrived in a boat at a beach in northeast Mexico and installed some signs signaling land that the U.S. Department of Defense considered restricted.
Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said late Monday that the country’s navy had removed the signs, which appeared to be on Mexican territory. And on Tuesday, Sheinbaum said that the International Boundary and Water Commission, a binational agency that determines the border between the two countries, was getting involved.
The signs, driven into the sand near where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, caused a stir when witnesses said men in a boat arrived at the local beach known as Playa Bagdad and erected them.
The signs read in English and Spanish, “Warning: Restricted Area” and went on to explain that it was Department of Defense property and had been declared restricted by “the commander.” It said there could be no unauthorized access, photography or drawings of the area.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico shared a comment from the Pentagon Tuesday about the incident, confirming that contractors putting up signs to mark the “National Defense Area III” had placed signs at the mouth of the Rio Grande.
“Changes in water depth and topography altered the perception of the international boundary’s location," the statement said. "Government of Mexico personnel removed 6 signs based on their perception of the international boundary’s location.”
The Pentagon said the contractors would "coordinate with appropriate agencies to avoid confusion in the future.”
Mexico had contacted its consulate in Brownsville, Texas and then the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Eventually, it was determined that contractors working for some U.S. government entity had placed the signs, Sheinbaum said.
“But the river changes its course, it breaks loose and according to the treaty you have to clearly demarcate the national border,” Sheinbaum said during her daily press briefing.
The area is close to SpaceX Starbase, which sits adjacent to Boca Chica Beach on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.
The facility and launch site for the SpaceX rocket program is under contract with the Department of Defense and NASA, which hopes to send astronauts back to the moon and someday to Mars.
In June, Sheinbaum said the government was looking into contamination from the SpaceX facility after pieces of metal, plastic and rocket pieces were reportedly found on the Mexican side of the border following the explosion of a rocket during a test.
The area also carries the added sensitivity of Trump's order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, which Mexico has also rejected.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum present a new security strategy against violence for Michoacan state, at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Claudia Rosel)
DEIR HAFER, Syria (AP) — The leader of Kurdish-led forces in Syria announced Friday that they will withdraw from a contested area in northern Syria, potentially heading off a major clash with government forces.
The announcement by Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, came as the Syrian military announced it had begun striking SDF positions, while the SDF reported “intense artillery shelling” in the town of Deir Hafer east of the city of Aleppo.
Hours earlier, a U.S. military designation had visited Deir Hafer and met with SDF officials in an apparent attempt to tamp down tensions.
The U.S. has good relations with both sides and has urged calm. A spokesperson for the U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Abdi said in a statement posted on X that “based on calls from friendly countries and mediators and in a demonstration of good faith," the SDF would redeploy its forces to areas east of the Euphrates River Saturday morning.
Shortly before Abdi's announcement, interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa had announced issuance of a decree strengthening Kurdish rights.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of people carrying their belongings arrived in government-held areas in northern Syria ahead of the anticipated offensive by Syrian troops on territory held by Kurdish-led fighters.
Many of the civilians who fled were seen using side roads to reach government-held areas because the main highway was blocked at a checkpoint in the town of Deir Hafer controlled by the SDF.
The Syrian army said late Wednesday that civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and then extended the evacuation period another day, saying the SDF had stopped civilians from leaving.
There had been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides in the area before that.
Men, women and children arrived on the government side of the line in cars and pickup trucks that were packed with bags of clothes, mattresses and other belongings. They were met by local officials who directed them to shelters.
In other areas, people crossed canals on small boats and crossed a heavily damaged pedestrian bridge to reach the side held by government forces.
The SDF closed the main highway but more than 11,000 people were still able to reach government-held areas on other roads, Syrian state TV reported.
Abu Mohammed said he came from the town of Maskana after hearing the government had opened a safe corridor, “only to be surprised when we arrived at Deir Hafer and found it closed.”
SDF fighters were preventing people from crossing through Syria’s main east-west highway and forcing them to take a side road, he said.
Kortay Khalil, an SDF official at the Deir Hafer the checkpoint, said they had closed it because the government closed other crossings.
“This crossing was periodically closed even before these events, but people are leaving through other routes, and we are not preventing them,” he said. “If we wanted to prevent them, no one would be able to leave the area.”
The U.S. military convoy arrived in Deir Hafer in the early afternoon accompanied by SDF officials. Associated Press journalists saw SDF leaders and American officials enter one of the government buildings, where they met inside for more than an hour before departing the area.
Inside Deir Hafer, many shops were closed Friday and people stayed home.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo, previously Syria’s largest city and commercial center, that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods north of the city that were then taken over by government forces.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF over an agreement reached in March to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
The U.S. special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, posted on X on Friday that Washington remains in close contact with all parties in Syria, “working around the clock to lower the temperature, prevent escalation, and return to integration talks between the Syrian government and the SDF.”
The SDF for years has been the main U.S. partner in Syria in fighting against the Islamic State group, but Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with Kurdish separatist insurgents in Turkey. Some of the factions that now make up the Syrian army were formerly Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
Al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist rebel group that spearheaded the overthrow of former President Bashar Assad, has sought to win over Kurds and other minorities suspicious of his government, particularly after several outbreaks of sectarian violence last year.
On Friday, he issued a decree recognizing Kurdish as a national language along with Arabic and adopting the Newroz festival, a traditional celebration of spring and renewal marked by Kurds around the region, as an official holiday.
The decree also annulled measures resulting from a 1962 census in the northeastern al-Hasakeh province that stripped tens of thousands of Kurds of their citizenship, and announced that “Syrian citizenship is granted to all residents of Kurdish origin living in Syria, including those previously unregistered, with full equality in rights and duties.”
There was no immediate response by the SDF to the decree.
American soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group stand guard during a meeting with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in Deir Hafer, Syria, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
Displaced Syrians walk to cross at a river crossing near the village of Rasm al-Harmil al-Imam in the eastern Aleppo countryside, near the front line with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in Deir Hafer, Syria, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Displaced Syrians cross a river in a boat near the village of Rasm al-Harmil al-Imam in the eastern Aleppo countryside, near the front line with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in Deir Hafer, Syria, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Displaced Syrians walk to cross at a river crossing near the village of Rasm al-Harmil al-Imam in the eastern Aleppo countryside, near the front line with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in Deir Hafer, Syria, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
U.S. military vehicles from the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group drive through Deir Hafer, Syria, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, before a meeting with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
Rohlat Efrin, center, a commander in the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, speaks with an SDF member as American soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group stand guard during a meeting in Deir Hafer, Syria, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
