Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced that he will send a diplomatic note to the United States in protest over funding provided by US charitable foundations and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to a Mexican anti-corruption non-profit group called Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity.
López Obrador claimed that the group, which monitors government spending and programs for abuses, is part of the conservative opposition and should not receive foreign funding or tax-deductible contributions. He published detailed financial information about the group and vowed to send a bill to Congress to change the rules on tax-deductible contributions.
The US funding in question includes around $685,000 from charitable foundations over the last eight years and approximately $5 million from USAID in recent years. López Obrador has complained about the funding for years and said he would also write a letter to President Joe Biden, who he believes is not aware of the situation.
Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity denies being allied with any political party and maintains that the donations were legal and reported to authorities. The group’s president, María Amparo Casar, stated that this is just another attack on their organization since López Obrador took office.
The controversy has drawn attention to López Obrador’s own use of taxpayer-funded government television stations to support the ruling party, as well as his long-standing sparring with journalists, civic and environmental groups. The president’s move against outside funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) mirrors similar actions taken by other leaders in Latin America, such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales, who expelled USAID from his country in 2013.
In recent years, the Nicaraguan government has also passed laws making it more difficult for NGOs to operate and seized some of their offices. López Obrador’s decision to send a diplomatic note is likely to be met with a general lack of comment from the US State Department, which typically does not discuss diplomatic correspondence.
Source: ABC News
