Washington DC [US], June 15: The Trump administration is pressuring Mexico to investigate and prosecute politicians with suspected links to organized crime, and to extradite them to the United States if there are criminal charges to answer there, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The requests - raised at least three times by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his team in bilateral meetings and conversations with Mexican officials - seek to push President Claudia Sheinbaum's government to investigate current elected officials and launch an unprecedented crackdown on narco corruption, four people familiar with the matter said.
In their discussions, the U.S. officials have called for action against several politicians from Sheinbaum's own Morena party and threatened to levy further tariffs if Mexico did not take action, two of the sources said.
The conversations between U.S. and Mexican officials have not been previously reported.
Mexico's foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters' questions before this story was published. After its publication, the foreign ministry denied in a post on social media that the U.S. had requested that any official be investigated.
In a daily press conference, Sheinbaum then said it was "false " that the U.S. had asked Mexico to give names of Mexican politicians.
The U.S. State Department, in a comment also sent after the story published, did not dispute that requests had been made that politicians with cartel links be investigated, but said no "tariff relief" has been offered in exchange.
"It is in the interest of both the United States and Mexico to work together to combat the cartels and the corrupt actors that enable them," the statement said.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
