Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador publicly threatened to influence the narrative surrounding the U.S. midterm elections if any candidate were to speak poorly about Mexicans, while expressing his goal to have the U.S. reform its immigration system.
“We are not going to allow Mexican migrants to be questioned in campaigns to supposedly win votes, we do not accept xenophobia, we do not accept racism,” Obrador said at a May 20 press conference, in reference to the U.S. November elections. He emphasized that his policy is “non-intervention and self-determination.”
“And if a party, candidates, thinking that if they speak ill of the Mexican they are going to get votes, well, from here we are going to denounce those facts so that our countrymen over there know who is who,” he added, warning that there are over 40 million Mexicans in the U.S.
Obrador compared the number of Mexicans to the 4 million Cubans in the U.S., saying Cubans “have great influence in guiding U.S. policies in relation to the rest of the world.”
In April, the Mexican president told Americans of Mexican and Latino descent to abstain from voting for parties or candidates that “mistreat” Mexico or other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to Reuters.
“When someone goes too far and causes offense, we’ll call them out so that our countrymen help us. Because there are 40 million of us,” he added in April. “Don’t forget your origins.”
Obrador announced Monday he would not be attending the Summit of the Americas, an event hosted by Biden and focusing on the migration crisis, later this week in Los Angeles. He cited Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua’s exclusion from the event as his reason for boycotting the event, according to The Associated Press.
