President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged Latinos in the United States on Monday not to vote in the November midterm elections for politicians who have “mistreated” them, in response to a comment by the former Republican president donald trump.
The former president boasted at a rally in Ohio over the weekend that, while in office, he had forced López Obrador to deploy 28,000 troops along the border to keep migrants out, after threatening to impose tariffs on Mexican products.
Questioned about Trump’s comments, AMLO replied that he was not going to allow any party or no candidate from the neighboring country “uses Mexico as a piñata”although he stated that he likes the Republican and that the understanding they had during his term was good for both nations.
The president also urged Americans of Mexican and Latino descent that “if Mexico or any country in Latin America or the Caribbean is mistreated, do not vote for those parties and for those candidates, whether they are from the Democratic Party or from the Republican Party.” .
When someone exceeds and offends, we are going to point it out so that our countrymen can help us. Because there are 40 million, “he said in his daily press conference.” Do not forget their origins, “he asked that group.
At 36.6 million, Mexicans made up the largest population of Hispanic origin in the United States in 2017, according to a report from the Pew Research Center before the last presidential elections, in 2020.
Trump sparked outrage on his way to winning the presidency in 2016 by calling Mexican migrants rapists and drug traffickers. López Obrador, then in opposition, in 2017 compared the Republican’s attitude to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard rejected the former president’s comments. “What happened yesterday is a man campaigning, stirring up the anti-Mexicanism that characterizes him,” he wrote on Twitter. “In this government we are patriots. And we have nothing to be ashamed of.”