Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that her nation would categorically reject any unilateral U.S. military in Mexico and that such military action "would not resolve anything."

A top Pentagon official said Tuesday that special operations forces do not have the authority to launch drone attacks at drug cartels in Mexico, even though President Donald Trump has designated them foreign terrorist organizations.

The Trump administration is reportedly mulling drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico to prevent the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the United States across the southern border.

The United States Treasury sanctioned six people and seven companies Monday for alleged money laundering for factions of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, underscoring the group’s new designation as a foreign terrorist organization under the Trump administration.

The designation aimed at “targeting the financial operations” of the cartel, which has raked in money by trafficking fentanyl to the United States, came as part of an investigation by U.S. and Mexican government agencies.

The Sinaloa cartel, the leading exporter of fentanyl to the U.S., is prohibiting the production and trafficking of the illegal opioid in its territory after coming under increasing pressure from U.S. law enforcement, cartel members say. 

The order comes from the “Chapitos,” the group led by the four sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who transformed the Sinaloa cartel into a global empire managing the supply of narcotics, from Mexican heroin to Colombian cocaine and fentanyl made with precursors from Asia. 

The former face of Mexico's war on drugs has been convicted by a US jury of drug trafficking.

Genaro García Luna, once Mexico's security minister, was found guilty of taking millions of dollars from Mexico's biggest crime group, the Sinaloa drug cartel.

García Luna - who was arrested in the state of Texas in 2019 - had pleaded not guilty.

The 54-year-old could face life in prison.

At a minimum, García Luna will serve the mandatory minimum of 20 years, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.

Two Mexican cartels have foot soldiers in every U.S. state and “pose the greatest criminal drug threat the United States has ever faced,” a top Drug Enforcement Administration official told a House panel Wednesday as lawmakers debated ways to stop the fentanyl crisis killing tens of thousands of Americans per year.