President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday that the Mexican government would carry through an investigation into an unauthorised CIA operation in the northern state of Chihuahua last month, in which several American agents and Mexican security personnel were killed in a road accident after a raid on a clandestine drug laboratory.
Mexico's foreign ministry has delivered a formal protest note to the US ambassador, Ronald Johnson, asserting that any intelligence activity on Mexican territory requires prior authorisation from the federal government. Officials said one US agent had entered Mexico on a tourist visa and another on a diplomatic passport, and that neither held the accreditation required to participate in operational activities.
Mrs Sheinbaum told reporters at her morning press conference that Washington had verbally committed to respect Mexican law going forward but that no written assurance had yet been received. She rejected criticism by President Donald Trump, who suggested again this week that the United States might consider unilateral action against drug cartels operating in Mexican territory.
The episode coincides with a separate US indictment of Sinaloa state governor Rubén Rocha for alleged ties to organised crime, which Mrs Sheinbaum has publicly questioned for lack of credible evidence. Her government has framed both matters as questions of Mexican sovereignty rather than law-enforcement cooperation.
Officials said the scope of the unauthorised activity remains under review, including how many other operations may have been conducted on Mexican soil over the past year. The findings will inform a revised bilateral protocol on counter-narcotics cooperation that Mexican negotiators are seeking from Washington.
Opposition lawmakers from the Partido Acción Nacional have called for a parliamentary inquiry, arguing the executive's response so far has been too mild. Mrs Sheinbaum's Morena party retains a comfortable majority in both chambers of Congress.