Guatemala denies authorizing US anti-drug strikes on its soil

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said Thursday that there is no agreement allowing the United States to conduct anti-drug trafficking operations on Guatemalan soil, according to the Associated Press report carried by ABC News and The Star. His denial followed a New York Times report that Guatemala had agreed to joint strikes.

“There is no agreement,” Arévalo told reporters, according to ABC News and Newsweek. He said there was instead a request within the framework of existing agreements. The Guardian reported the same distinction: Guatemala had requested US military cooperation for equipment, training and experts to assist Guatemalan operations against drug trafficking, but the plans stopped short of US military operations on Guatemalan soil.

Arévalo said Guatemala conducts maritime interdictions in which the United States has collaborated with training, capacity building and equipment, according to ABC News. He said the government’s actions are in accordance with Guatemalan law and the Constitution. His government said there was no agreement authorizing foreign military operations on national territory, The Guardian reported.

The constitutional line was explicit. Arévalo said the only body that can authorize operations involving soldiers on Guatemalan soil is the Congress of the Republic, according to ABC News. The statement places any armed foreign role inside a domestic legal process rather than a bilateral executive arrangement alone.

The reported talks involved Arévalo, Guatemala’s defense minister Henry Sáenz and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to The Guardian. Guatemala said the conversation confirmed terms for US cooperation after Sáenz requested help. The government described the effort as an expansion of a strategy implemented in 2024.

Newsweek reported that Arévalo’s office had told The New York Times Guatemala requested “cooperation in operations led by Guatemalan security forces against drug trafficking organizations” from the United States, but did not specify further. The phrase leaves room for training, logistics or intelligence support; Arévalo’s public denial closes off the idea of authorized US strikes on Guatemalan territory.

The dispute sits inside a broader Latin American pressure point. Newsweek says President Donald Trump’s administration has made a drug-trafficking crackdown central to its foreign policy in Latin America, pushing governments to show cooperation with US authorities while trying to protect sovereignty by limiting US operations inside their territory. It cites joint anti-drug operations by Ecuador and the US earlier this year and strained relations with Mexico after two CIA agents linked to counter-narcotics operations were killed.

The mechanism is practical as much as diplomatic. Counternarcotics cooperation can involve equipment, training, intelligence, maritime interdiction and capacity building. Cross-border strikes or foreign military operations are a different threshold, touching sovereignty, congressional authority, local legitimacy and the risk of escalation. Guatemala’s denial keeps the arrangement, as publicly described, on the cooperation side of that line.

What remains uncertain is what exact support the United States may provide, how any expanded cooperation will be governed, and whether future operations will test the boundary Arévalo described. The supplied evidence does not include the New York Times article itself, the text of any agreement, or a detailed operational plan from either government.

The cleanest implication is that Guatemala is trying to accept US help against drug trafficking without conceding authority over force on its territory. In a region where drug-war cooperation can quickly become a sovereignty dispute, Arévalo’s denial narrows the public terms: assistance may proceed, but foreign strikes have not been authorized under the evidence supplied here.