Perry: I’ll send troops to Mexico

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has said he would get the US military involved in Mexico’s war with drug cartels, in comments likely to upset the Mexican government.

The remarks, made on Saturday, appear to be a new misstatement on foreign policy by Mr Perry, the Texas governor who is struggling to hold on to the mantle of frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

Mr Perry said that as president he would work with Mexico in the same way that the US has worked with Colombia to combat cartels.

“The way that we were able to stop the drug cartels in Colombia was with a co-ordinated effort,” he said in a campaign speech in New Hampshire. “It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and to keep them off of our border.”

The US military has advisers in Colombia who are involved mainly in training, logistical support and intelligence backup for the Colombian armed forces as they fight cocaine traffickers and the FARC guerrillas.

But there are no US armed forces in Mexico fighting the drug war and Mexico strongly opposes any US military involvement, although it has received more than $1 billion in aid to take on the cartels.