Washington DC - President Donald Trump confirmed Sunday that he had offered to send US troops to Mexico in a call with its President Claudia Sheinbaum to combat drug trafficking.

Sheinbaum revealed at a public event on Saturday that she had rejected a proposal from Trump to send American troops to her country but said instead she had offered closer collaboration and information sharing.

Trump told reporters Sunday that "it's true" he offered the deployment, claiming that cartels are "horrible people that have been killing people left and right."

He said that "they've made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people," adding: "We lost 300,000 people last year to fentanyl and drugs."

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"If Mexico wanted help with the cartels we would be honored to go in and do it. I told her that. I would be honored to go in and do it," he added.

Trump has long complained – and uses as an argument for imposing tariffs on the country – that Mexico has not done enough to stop the entry of migrants and trafficking of drugs, particularly fentanyl, into the US. He angered Mexicans in early March when he said America's southern neighbor was "dominated entirely by criminal cartels that murder, rape, torture."

On Sunday, Trump claimed that Sheinbaum had turned down his offer of troop contingents under the threat of reprisals from non-state armed groups.

"The president of Mexico is a lovely woman, but she is so afraid of the cartels that she can't even think straight," Trump claimed to reporters.