Antonio Baranda and Claudia Guerrero / Reform Agency
Saturday, March 18, 2023 | 20:22
In the midst of tensions with the United States over the strategy to combat drug trafficking, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warned that the Americans may threaten Mexico, but will never allow them to trample it.
In front of a full Zócalo, the President took advantage of the 85th anniversary of the Oil Expropriation to send a message to the neighboring country, to make it clear that his Government will collaborate in the fight to stop fentanyl, but will not submit to the decisions of any nation foreign.
“They can threaten us with committing any outrage, but we will never, ever allow them to violate our sovereignty and trample on the dignity of our homeland. Cooperation, yes; submission, no. Interventionism, no,” he said.
After reiterating that Mexico is not a colony or protectorate for anyone, he lashed out at Republican and Democratic politicians who have criticized Mexico’s actions to deal with criminal groups.
Flanked by his cabinet, López Obrador called them hypocritical and irresponsible, who are dedicated to the grid and politicking.
“In recent days some legislators from the United States, accustomed to seeing the speck in the eye of others and not the beam in their own, in a propaganda plan, we would say here, in colloquial language, with grid and confines, voters, politicians, maintained that, If we didn’t have fentanyl trafficking to the northern border, they were going to propose to their country’s Congress that they occupy US soldiers, our territory to confront organized crime,” he said.
“From here, from this Zócalo, the political and cultural heart of Mexico, we remind those irresponsible hypocritical politicians that Mexico is an independent and free country, not a colony or protectorate of the United States.”
The Chief Executive affirmed that bilateral cooperation to combat drug trafficking will not be like in the past, when federal officials agreed with drug cartels and had shady agreements with US agencies.
“First, I want to make clear that it is no longer the time of Calderón or García Luna. That it is no longer the time of the shady links between the Government of Mexico and the agencies of the Government of the United States,” he said.
“Now there is no simulation, really, organized crime is being fought, because there is no corruption, there is no impunity, and there are no relations of complicity with anyone.”
