The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, ironized this Friday about the criticism launched at his government by US Senator Ted Cruz, stating that they are “a stamp of pride.”
“It is a stamp of pride that a senator like this person launches against the government that I represent, it fills me with pride for what he represents,” he said during his usual morning conference held in Ciudad Juárez, bordering the United States, in the North of mexico.
The Republican legislator for Texas affirmed last Wednesday, in a hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate, that there is “a deepening of civil unrest in Mexico.”
Cruz also asked Democratic President Joe Biden to pressure his Mexican counterpart to stop violence against journalists.
“If he praised me, if he spoke well of me, maybe I would think that we are not doing things right, but if he says that we are wrong, then the truth does make me proud,” added the president.
The conservative senator is known for his harsh positions against irregular migration to the United States, as well as the decriminalization of abortion or the political inclusion of minority groups in his country, such as the African-American community.
Already on Thursday, the Mexican ambassador in Washington, Esteban Moctezuma, had responded to Cruz’s criticism in a letter in which he invited him to “expand his views” and learn about the actions of the López Obrador government to strengthen democracy. and punish crimes against journalists.
The Mexican president also asserted that Cruz “is against the policy that we are carrying out in favor of the people of Mexico and in defense of Mexicans who work and live honestly in the United States.”
His reaction is to be expected, he added.
Mexico and the United States maintain a vast and complex relationship marked by strong economic and commercial integration, but also by highly sensitive issues such as the violence generated by the Mexican drug cartels, arms trafficking and undocumented migration.
