#WORLD NEWS FEBRUARY 5, 2018 / 3:56 PM / UPDATED 22 MINUTES AGO

U.S., Peru agree to keep collaborating in drugs trafficking fight

Mitra Taj
3 MIN READ

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru’s foreign minister said on Monday that she and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had agreed to keep working together to fight drug trafficking, days after President Donald Trump had threatened to curb aid to drug hotspots.

“The secretary of state has recognized Peru’s efforts to combat narco-trafficking ... We have agreed that we must continue to join forces in this fight,” Peru’s Cayetana Aljovin said in a joint news conference with Tillerson.

Trump said on Friday that unnamed countries were “pouring drugs” into the United States, calling to “stop the aid” after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told him that cocaine was primarily coming from Colombia and Peru, and trafficked through Mexico and Central America.

Tillerson, who has at times contradicted Trump on foreign policy, struck a more conciliatory tone, saying:

“The U.S. is victimized certainly by the flow of narcotics to the U.S., but the countries in which these narcotics are transited, or where organizations are carrying out their activities to move these drugs, they also suffer as well”.

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