Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador urged U.S. politicians on Monday to develop proposals to stop the sale of weapons in their territory instead of using migration as a matter of “politicking”.
In his usual daily press conference, the Mexican president called, especially to the governors of Texas and Florida, Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis, respectively, both from the Republican Party and to legislators in general who support the arms trade.
“That is a good initiative so that there won’t be these unfortunate facts of murders, these shootings that are constantly happening” in the United States, López Obrador explained to journalists at the National Palace in Mexico City.
“Why don’t they get involved in that? And stop receiving money for campaigns from arms manufacturers, from the war industry, because that is also what is behind it,” he accused.
The Mexican president announced that today, Tuesday, he will telephone his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, to address issues such as immigration.
According to López Obrador, U.S. politicians resort to issues such as immigration during election time to take “political advantage”, in an attitude that he described as “immoral”.
López Obrador said that a sector of the political class in the United States traditionally “do not say a peep” about arms sales because they receive financing from the war industry to support their political campaigns.
The Mexican government has filed lawsuits against U.S. arms manufacturers and distributors in the United States, accusing them of influencing gun violence in Mexican territory through negligent business practices.
Mexican authorities estimate that at least half a million weapons flow illegally from the United States to criminals in Mexico each year, exposing the Latin American country to gun violence.