MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador has again complained to the United States that the US government funds organizations opposed to his administration, this time in a letter to President Joe Biden.
The letter was dated Tuesday, the same day López Obrador met with a White House official. The president made a similar complaint in a diplomatic note two years ago, just before a virtual meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris.
In the letter, López Obrador says the United States Agency for International Development has been funding “organizations openly opposed to the legal and legitimate government” for some time, an act he calls “interventionist.”
“I am sure you are unaware of this matter and for this reason I respectfully request your appreciated intervention,” reads the letter, which López Obrador read during his Wednesday morning press briefing.
USAID’s goals for Mexico focus on reducing “impunity, crime, and violence by limiting the operating space of organized crime in targeted areas,” according to its current development strategy.
Organizations that López Obrador has identified as opposition include the local branch of Article 19, an international free speech organization, which has criticized the number of journalists killed in Mexico.
López Obrador met with US Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall on Tuesday to discuss coordination ahead of the end of US asylum restrictions at their shared border.