2024-03-25 01:14:09
The migration crisis. The fentanyl epidemic and the war on drugs. The anti-Mexican discourse in the elections in the United States. Relations with Joe Biden and Donald Trump. These were the main themes of the first interview that Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave to American television during his government. The president of Mexico dismissed accusations of political blackmail against the White House and defended his Administration’s security policy and migration management on 60 minutes, the most watched news program in that country. “We are an independent, free and sovereign country, we are not a colony, we are not a protectorate of any foreign country,” the president said on CBS.
The López Obrador Government assured that the interview was granted for the consumption of the Mexican community in the United States. The television program, however, also represented an opportunity to put Mexico’s position in black and white regarding the presidential elections on November 5 on the other side of the border, in which migration and the war on drugs are have established themselves as crucial issues in the contest between Biden and Trump. It was also a platform to defend his legacy and to talk about the atmosphere that he seeks to prevail in the bilateral relationship, the year in which his mandate ends and that Mexicans are also called to the polls to elect a new president. “We have a very good relationship with the United States Government, but not one of subordination,” he added.
Journalist Sharyn Alfonsi focused several of her questions on the contrast between Trump and Biden, who will compete in a few months for a second term in the White House. “Biden is respectful of our sovereignty as President Trump was,” said López Obrador, in a Solomonic tone. There has been much talk in Mexico about a possible return of the Republican Party candidate, who has maintained strong-arm rhetoric against migration and has agitated an anti-Mexican discourse to wink at the most conservative sectors of voters. Despite the ideological distances, the Mexican president has defended his good relationship with both. “We have had differences, but we have put the general interest of the people of Mexico and the United States first,” he commented. “We need each other,” he added.
“The wall does not work,” said López Obrador. He also downplayed Trump’s promises to build a new border fence as a campaign strategy. The Mexican president also spoke about the approaches he has had with Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba to deal with the migration crisis. “It is a short-term solution, but not a fundamental one,” he acknowledged, according to the program transcript. “We want the root causes to be addressed,” he insisted on migration, otherwise “the flows of migrants will continue.”
López Obrador, on the other hand, was openly critical of the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who has promoted anti-immigrant policies, such as the SB4 law, which allows state police to expressly detain and deport anyone suspected of having entered without papers. to Texas territory. “He goes to the Rio Grande and puts up barbed wire and makes a show, that is opportunism, with all due respect, that is politicking, it is not serious,” questioned the Mexican politician, who has waged a clash of several months against Abbott, a figure who has made headlines in the Mexican media for the installation of buoys and sinking devices on the borders between both countries. The president also rejected the statements of Republican legislator Mike Johnson, president of the House of Representatives, who assured at the end of February that “Mexico will do what we ask because we are the United States.” “No, no,” the president concluded, in an additional excerpt broadcast by CBS, and criticized the fact that in Washington the country is being politically blamed for the immigration crisis.
López Obrador defended the holding of his daily press conferences, Las Mañaneras, and justified his decision to reveal the telephone number of the New York Times correspondent when he was investigating drug traffickers’ links with his close circle. “I didn’t do it with the intention of harming her, she, like you, are public figures, just like me,” he justified. He also insisted that the alleged links between his government and the cartels are “slander,” and said that his response corresponded to the seriousness of the accusations.
The president also spoke in favor of his security policy, known as “hugs, not bullets,” and said it has worked “very well.” “There is no impunity in Mexico,” he said, despite the fact that civil organizations calculate figures of over 90% of crimes that are not punished. He also refused to engage in dialogue or negotiate with criminal organizations. López Obrador made a small turn when faced with the question that fentanyl is produced in the country, this time he acknowledged it, although he said that there is also production in the United States and Canada.
Despite this, he stressed that there is no drug consumption in Mexico. “But there is drug consumption in Mexico,” the journalist insisted. “But very little,” responded the president. “There is drug trafficking, but no consumption,” the translation reads. He also assured that he managed to eradicate corruption, despite the fact that the American network contrasted the statements with the reports from Transparency International, which assure that there has been no progress. “There is no repression,” López Obrador said of political violence and the murders of candidates.
The broadcast of the interview lasted just over 13 minutes and closed with a brief mention by the host about Claudia Sheinbaum, the official candidate for the presidency and leader in the polls. The CBS network referred to Sheinbaum as a “hand-picked” successor, despite the fact that she won the candidacy after winning the Morena poll, the ruling party, and she highlighted her high probability of becoming the first president of Mexico. . The broadcast did not show any excerpt of López Obrador speaking about the candidate of his party, in the midst of the ban imposed by the electoral authorities. He was the first Mexican president to be interviewed in the program’s nearly six-decade history.
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