Weeks after the high-profile kidnapping of four Americans brought the country’s security crisis to the world’s attention, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Monday that Mexico is safer than the United States.
“Mexico is a safer country than the US. Travelling securely through Mexico is not problematic.” During a morning press conference, he stated, “That’s something the US citizens also know, just like our fellow Mexicans that live in the US.
Early in March, gunmen with ties to the Gulf cartel attacked the Americans while they were travelling in Matamoros, a border city in Mexico.Two of the Americans and a Mexican bystander died in the incident.
On Friday, the Texas Department of Public Safety told people not to go to Mexico during spring break because there could be violence between drug cartels.
When asked about security in his country by a local reporter, López Obrador mentioned the number of American tourists and expats who had recently flocked to famous beach locations and Mexico City to take advantage of the country’s warmer climate and lower cost of living. Mexico receives billions in annual earnings from visitors from the US.
“US government alerts say that it’s safe to only travel [in the states of] Campeche and Yucatan. If that were the case, so many Americans wouldn’t be coming in to live in Mexico City and the rest of the country. In the past few years, more Americans have come to live in Mexico. So, what’s happening? Why the paranoia?”
The Mexican president also claimed there was “a campaign against Mexico from conservative US politicians that don’t want this country to keep developing for the good of the Mexican people.”
Mexico has some well-known tourist spots, but it also has its share of violent crime, including kidnapping and human trafficking, especially in border regions. Mexico has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and the nation has been plagued by a disappearance epidemic, with more than 100,000 Mexicans and migrants still unaccounted for.
Public trust in Mexican government authorities has also been damaged by accusations of corruption and inaction; a government study last year accused Mexico’s military and police of being responsible for the infamous 2014 disappearance of 43 students.
Six of Mexico’s 32 states, including the state of Tamaulipas in the northeast where Matamoros is situated, have “do not travel” advisories in place, according to the US State Department. In 17 states, it advises Americans to “exercise increased vigilance” and “reconsider travel” to seven Mexican states.
‘We don’t take orders from anyone’
Six people have been detained in connection with the tragic Matamoros kidnapping, and Mexico has sent hundreds of security personnel to the region in an effort to protect “the well-being of civilians,” according to the military ministry.
But the incident has also made things worse between the US government and the president of Mexico.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, where the victims of the Matamoros attack are from, announced last week that he intended to introduce legislation designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organisations and allowing the US military to conduct operations in Mexico to destroy drug labs, which are frequently controlled by such criminal organisations. López Obrador described the notion as an “offence to the people of Mexico” and a “lack of respect for our independence.”
“We are not a protectorate of the United States or a colony of the United States. Mexico is a free, independent, and sovereign country. We don’t take orders from anyone,” López Obrador said at a news conference.