Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum will be sworn in on October 1. In the meantime, outgoing president Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is still very much active and now part of a new international diplomatic controversy with the U.S.
On Wednesday, AMLO criticized the U.S. funding for a Mexican anti-corruption nonprofit group called Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), announcing plans to send a diplomatic note to the U.S. government in protest. According to AMLO, the body is aligned with conservative opposition forces in Mexico and should not receive foreign funding or tax-deductible contributions.
"I think that there is open intervention by the U.S. government in the sovereign affairs of Mexico," López Obrador said in during his morning news briefing, before revealing financial details about the organization and vowing to propose legislation to change tax deduction rules related to such contributions.
AMLO (@lopezobrador_) aseguró que enviará una carta a Joe Biden por el financiamiento de EE.UU. a Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción (MCCI).
— Ruido en la Red (@RuidoEnLaRed) August 14, 2024
"Consideramos que hay injerencia del gobierno de Estados Unidos". pic.twitter.com/z1evTTMhOe
According to documents presented by AMLO, MCCI received approximately $685,000 from U.S. charitable foundations over the past eight years. A more significant portion of its funding—around $5 million—allegedly came from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is overseen by the U.S. State Department.
López Obrador, who has repeatedly expressed concerns about this funding, announced that he would write a diplomatic note to U.S. President Joe Biden about the issue. He also stated that he would request investigations by prosecutors and tax authorities into the donations received by MCCI.
It's not the first time that MCCI and AMLO have clashed in recent months, as the two went head to head back in July when the president's sons, Gonzalo Alfonso y Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, were implicated in a corruption scandal, allegations they denied, accusing MCCI and several media outlets of defamation. MCCI responded with a detailed letter in which they doubled down on their accusation, pointing to the "veracity, rigorousness and documentary support" behind all their investigations.
AMLO also accused the U.S. of interfering in Mexico's sovereignty through MCCI in 2021, with no apparent result. Back then, however, MCCI said in a series of tweets that its work was "legal" and the criticism showed a "serious misunderstanding" of international corruption.
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