MEXICO CITY—Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto faced calls on Thursday to disclose details of his recent telephone call with U.S. President Donald Trump after media reports said Mr. Trump criticized the efficacy of Mexico’s war on drug cartels.
During the call last Friday, Mr. Trump is reported to have told his Mexican counterpart that Mexico wasn’t doing a good enough job fighting cartels and that the U.S. stood ready to help.
“You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out,” Mr. Trump said, according to a transcript obtained by CNN.
President Donald Trump’s strong executive actions on immigration, his planned construction of a border wall, and his insinuations for stricter trade policies may cause a diplomatic crisis as Mexico’s President Peña Nieto plans a trip to Washington next week. WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains.
“When you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having, don’t worry about it,” Mr. Trump said at the annual event. “They’re tough. We have to be tough. It’s time we’re going to be tough, folks. We’re taken advantage of by every nation in the world, virtually. It’s not going to happen anymore.”
Earlier, the Associated Press reported that Mr. Trump had threatened to send U.S. troops to help fight the cartels if Mexico’s army was too timid or couldn’t handle the challenge.
The Mexican government said the AP’s accounts of the remarks “do not correspond to reality.”
“The tone was constructive and an agreement was reached so work teams could meet often to build a positive accord for both Mexico and the U.S.,” Mexico’s foreign ministry said Wednesday night.
The reported criticism of Mexico’s handling of the war on drug cartels, which has claimed about 120,000 lives since 2006, hasn’t sat well with Mexicans. Mexico’s army, which has maintained a wary stance toward the U.S. since the 1846-48 Mexican-American War, has lost about 400 soldiers fighting drug gangs over the past decade, according to the Mexican government.
“The armed forces will question their relationship with the U.S.,” said Raúl Benítez, a security analyst at the Autonomous National University of Mexico. “The [new U.S. administration] is risking throwing in the garbage, in a single week, the work of 20 years building a relationship.”
Since taking office two weeks ago on a vow to shake up the status quo, President Donald Trump has unsettled several world leaders with his foreign-policy statements and exchanges.
Mr. Benítez said Mr. Trump was lighting the fire of Mexican nationalism, and stoking a feeling of national unity similar to when President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized foreign oil firms in 1938.
He said Mr. Trump’s alleged mention of “bad hombres” that the Mexican military couldn’t deal with also awoke memories of Gen. John J. Pershing’s punitive and unsuccessful expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa after Mr. Villa’s cross-border attack on the New Mexico town of Columbus left 18 Americans dead in 1916.
“The argument is the same,” said Mr. Benítez. “Pancho Villa was a bad guy nobody could deal with.”
Several Mexican senators called on Mr. Peña Nieto to disclose the details of the call to several senate committees. “This would give us some certainty about what really happened,” said Gabriela Cuevas, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Mexico and a member of the conservative opposition.
Whether Mr. Trump’s comment was a threat, an offer of assistance, or a joke, it was inappropriate, said Alejandro Hope, a public-security expert who once worked at the country’s civilian intelligence agency.
Mr. Hope said Mexican and U.S. administrations have cooperated closely in the fight against drugs for more than a decade. That cooperation has included the exchange of intelligence as well as the U.S. providing equipment and training. U.S. intelligence, for instance, twice helped lead Mexican armed forces to capture fugitive drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Mexican officials have long acknowledged that corruption makes the domestic fight against drug cartels more difficult. But both Mexican and U.S. governments have said demand by U.S. drug users is the root cause of the drug war.
U.S. criticism of Mexico’s military has caused problems in the sometimes prickly relationship between the two nations before. In 2011, U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual resigned after WikiLeaks released several cables bearing his signature in which the U.S. envoy questioned Mexico’s ability to tackle organized crime.
Then President Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party was particularly angered by one cable signed by Mr. Pascual, a 23-year career diplomat, which described the Mexican army as risk-averse and inefficient.
Mr. Benítez said both U.S. and Mexican military officials have been ordered by their superiors not to talk to media about the alleged exchange between Mr. Trump and Mr. Peña Nieto in an attempt to lower tensions.