Trump Offers Mexico Assistance Against Cartels After Americans Slayed

President Donald Trump departs the White House in Washington for a campaign rally in Kentucky on Nov. 4, 2019. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump said that the United States is ready to help Mexico clean out cartels that are the principal cause of violence in the country.

Trump was reacting to nine American citizens being killed by cartels near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“A wonderful family and friends from Utah got caught between two vicious drug cartels, who were shooting at each other, with the result being many great American people killed, including young children, and some missing,” Trump said in a statement on Nov. 5, a day after the attack in Sonora.

“If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!”

In another tweet, Trump said: “This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said around the same time that he would speak with Trump about possibly cooperating on security issues in the country.

Mexican authorities confirmed earlier Tuesday that at least three women and six children were killed by cartel gunmen.

The burnt wreckage of a vehicle transporting a family living near the border with the United States is seen, after the family was caught in a crossfire between unknown gunmen from rival cartels, in Bavispe, Sonora, Mexico on Nov. 4, 2019. Kenneth Miller/Lafe Langford Jr. via Reuters

Some other children escaped with their lives and were rushed to Phoenix, Arizona, for treatment, but one child is still missing.

Christopher Landau, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, traveled to Sonora for work meetings on Monday. He said in a statement he was following the incident as it developed.

“The security of our co-nationals is our great priority,” he said.

Claudia Pavlovich Arellano, the Governor of Sonora, issued a statement saying: “As a mother, I feel courage, repudiation and deep pain for what cowards did in the mountains between Sonora and Chihuahua. I don’t know what kind of monsters dare to hurt women and children. As Governor, I will do everything to make sure this does not go unpunished and those responsible pay.”