Guatemala Denies Authorizing US Strikes on Drug Traffickers
Guatemala’s president has denied reports the Central American nation authorized the U.S. to carry out strikes against drug smugglers on its soil, but said it has requested U.S. help tackling cartels amid the White House’s crackdown on narcotrafficking in Latin America.
“There is no agreement,” Bernardo Arévalo told reporters on Thursday, shortly after The New York Times reported he had consented to joint airstrikes and other military operations in Guatemala during a call with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Arévalo’s office had told the newspaper Guatemala had requested “cooperation in operations led by Guatemalan security forces against drug trafficking organizations” from the U.S. but did not specify further.
President Donald Trump’s administration has put its drug trafficking clampdown at the center of its foreign policy in Latin America, forcing countries in Central and South America to at once show willingness to cooperate with U.S. authorities while trying to maintain sovereignty by limiting U.S. operations in their territory.
Ecuador and the U.S. launched joint anti-drug operations in the South American country earlier this year, while the deaths of two CIA agents thought to be involved in counter-narcotics operations in Mexico last month strained relations between Washington and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government.
Against this backdrop, the U.S.’ controversial strike campaign on alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has killed close to 200 people since September, according to publicly available numbers, although the administration hasn’t published credible evidence the vessels were transporting drugs.
Arévalo said on Thursday the assistance the country had requested from the U.S. “falls within the framework of existing agreements in several countries” and Guatemala was signing onto the “types of collaboration that have been taking place in the past.”
The Guatemalan leader said only the nation’s lawmakers could approve military operations in the country, but the government “is not requesting this cooperation and has no plans to do so.”
Guatemala, which shares more than 500 miles of border with southern Mexico, has long worked with U.S. authorities to share intelligence, vet personnel and seize drugs flowing north into Mexico and on to the U.S.
It is also one of the 17 nations to sign up to Trump’s Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, announced in March this year. The White House said at the time drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere pose “grave dangers” and committed the U.S. and partner countries to using ” any necessary resources” to defeat them.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin visited Mexico last week for a two-day visit to smooth over tensions with the Mexican government, heightened by the U.S. filing criminal charges against 10 Mexican officials-including the governor of the northwestern state of Sinaloa-for drug-trafficking in late April.
U.S. authorities announced the charges shortly after Mexico said it was investigating the deaths of two U.S. officials and two local officials in a car accident in the northern state of Chihuahua. It was quickly reported after the incident on April 19 that the American officials were CIA operatives and were returning from an operation to dismantle a drug lab in the border state when they died.
The Mexican government offered up mismatched accounts for how much the country’s authorities knew about the CIA agents’ presence in the area. Sheinbaum said her government wasn’t informed of the operation in advance.
Under Mexican law, foreign agents are not allowed to operate in the country without approval.
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This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 7:54 AM.