Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is cautioning US President Joe Biden from intervening in matters of domestic affairs amid the latest developments in last week’s kidnapping of four Americans.
On Tuesday, Mexican officials announced that two of the US citizens who were kidnapped in a Mexican border city just south of Brownsville, Texas, had been found dead. The other two were rescued and returned to the US A suspect is in custody.
During his daily press conference, López Obrador addressed the news, saying that Mexican authorities were “working and cooperating” with their American counterparts, but that his government wouldn’t allow “foreign countries” to intervene.
“We don’t meddle to try to see what US criminal gangs distribute fentanyl in the United States,” López Obrador said.
In the light of last week’s kidnapping, some Republican lawmakers have called for the US to take a more aggressive approach to the cartels on the other side of the southern border.
On Monday, Senator Lindsey Graham said he was preparing to introduce legislation that would “set the stage” for US military force in Mexico and designate certain drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
“I would tell the Mexican government if you don’t clean up your act, we’re going to clean it up for you,” Graham told Fox News.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene echoed these remarks, tweeting that the US military should be stationed at the border and “strategically strike” to take out the cartels, which she said “control” the Mexican government and people.
“Our military is competent and should take [the cartels] out swiftly,” the Georgia Republican said. “Make an example out of these monsters.”
Matamoros, the city in the Tamaulipas state where the Americans had traveled to for last week, has been a stronghold for the drug-trafficking Gulf Cartel, which has used the city as a key pipeline for moving illegal drugs across the border.
The latest incident has drawn national attention to the violent realities that many Mexicans have lived in for years. In Tamaulipas alone, thousands have disappeared since the government declared war on the cartels in 2006 and the terror in the area has only been escalated by wars between the factions.
In a statement made Tuesday, the US Embassy in Mexico City said that the four US citizens were shot at by gunmen shortly after crossing into Mexico last Friday, The gunmen then herded the Americans from their white minivan to another vehicle before they fled the scene with them.
Video of the incident was shared on social media, showing men with assault rifles moving the four people into the bed of a pickup truck in broad daylight.
The Americans have been identified as Latavia “Tay” McGee, Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown and Eric James Williams.
A travel advisory has been in place for Tamaulipas since October. The State Department has issued a “Do Not Travel” advisory for the state, noting that “Violent crime – such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery – is widespread and common in Mexico.”
On Monday, López Obrador did not mention the cosmetic medical procedure that the Americans had reportedly traveled to Mexico for, instead offering a theory that the group had crossed the border to buy medicines.
“There was a confrontation between groups, and they were detained,” López López Obrador said. “The whole government is working on it.”
Newsweek reached out to the Biden administration for comment.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is cautioning US President Joe Biden from intervening in matters of domestic affairs amid the latest developments in last week’s kidnapping of four Americans.
