Mexico City (EFE).- The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, considered this Thursday that the proposal of the US Republicans to declare war on the Mexican cartels for considering them terrorists is “irresponsible” and an “offense to the people of Mexico ”.
“This initiative of the Republicans, in addition to being irresponsible, is an offense against the people of Mexico, a lack of respect for our sovereignty,” he said at his morning press conference.
López Obrador assured that he will not allow a foreign government, much less its Armed Forces, to intervene in national territory.
“Once we set our position, we are not going to allow any foreign government to intervene, much less the Armed Forces of a foreign government to intervene in our territory,” he said.
In addition, he threatened the Republican Party, promoter of this initiative that would authorize action by the US Army against the cartels, to mobilize Mexicans and Hispanics residing in the United States to vote against him.
“If they do not change their attitude and think that they are going to use Mexico for their propaganda and political purposes, we are going to call for that party not to be voted for because it is interventionist, inhumane, hypocritical and corrupt,” he warned.
On Wednesday, two bills were presented in the United States that advocate considering Mexican cartels as terrorist groups and authorizing the use of the Army to combat them.
Drug trafficking, a common issue between Mexico and the US
The controversy has grown after the controversy unleashed by the kidnapping last Friday of four Americans in the border city of Matamoros (Tamaulipas), two of whom were murdered.
In the background is also the fight against trafficking in fentanyl, a synthetic opioid manufactured in Mexico with chemicals from China that has caused hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths in the United States.
These legislative proposals would prohibit criminal members from entering the United States, would authorize the freezing of their assets and would prohibit anyone from knowingly helping them, among other mechanisms.
“We do not admit what this senator (Lindsey Graham) said, Mexico is respected, we are not a protectorate or colony, we are an independent, sovereign country and we do not receive orders from anyone,” replied the Mexican president.
The White House, however, reduced the tension between the two countries on Wednesday by assuring that the United States now has all the legal powers to fight drug trafficking without the need to declare the Mexican cartels terrorist groups.
“Declaring these cartels foreign terrorist organizations would not give us any additional jurisdiction that we don’t already have at this time,” Karine Jean-Pierre, a spokeswoman for President Joe Biden, said in her daily press briefing.