By: The opinion Posted Aug 22, 2023, 16:11 pm EDT
The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, rejected on Tuesday the use of lethal force and weapons by the US Army to combat Mexican drug trafficking, as proposed by the governor of Florida and Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, Ron DeSantis.
“The governor of Florida, who is also in the campaign. (he is) saying that he is going to use weapons, cannons, missiles, to fight drug trafficking in Mexico. First, we are fulfilling our responsibility and here are the datafacing crime,” said López Obrador in his daily press conference.
“Second, and it is the most important thing, what I said: we are independent How will you threaten?“he added.
Lopez Obrador’s remarks come after DeSantis last Friday proposed the use of deadly force against people he says are smuggling fentanyl in backpacks as they cross the border from Mexico into the United States.
“If you have someone who comes with fentanyl in their backpack, that is the last thing they are going to be able to do because we are going to leave them completely dead at the border. We can’t take it anymore“, declared the Republican in the forum The Gathering, organized by conservatives in Atlanta, Georgia.
López Obrador has questioned DeSantis for his anti-immigrant policies and for being in favor of using the United States Armed Forces against Mexican cartels.
Even, the president ironized that this is the reason for the drop in DeSantis’ preferenceswho now polls 14.6% in the Real Clear Politics polling average of the Republican intern, up from 21.3% when he announced his candidacy last May.
“I have been looking at polls and, with all due respect, it does not raisebecause it has an anti-immigrant policy, an inhumane, discriminatory policy, and the Americans do not see that well, the majority of the people do not see that well”, commented the Mexican president.
The president questioned the anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican proposals of other Republicans, such as the buoy fence that Texas Governor Greg Abbott placed in the Rio Grande.
“It has a lot to do with the season, with the fact that there will be elections in the United States and they are already wanting to blame Mexico, because of migration, because of fentanyl, because of the (commercial) treaty, but it doesn’t work for them,” said López Obrador.
Likewise, he reiterated his appreciation for the immigration policies of President Joe Biden, such as stopping the construction of the border wall and authorizing asylum for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
“We are acknowledging that President Biden is the first president in recent times not to build a wallall the others, Republicans or Democrats, made their section of the wall, also for publicity,” he said.
With information from Efe.
Keep reading:
• AMLO will meet with Joe Biden in November to discuss development and migration
• AMLO denies that drug trafficking uses remittances to launder money from the US.
• AMLO says that it would be “outrageous” and “extermination” if Greg Abbott ordered migrant children to be pushed into the Rio Grande