Mexico has criticised the United States for “bad taste” after a State Department advisory for the Central American country warned of “widespread” violent crime and kidnapping.
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was speaking during a press conference on Wednesday when he addressed the recently upgraded travel advisory for his country, which he described as being “nosy” as well as in “bad taste”.
“How can I not go to New York, it is a beautiful city, (for) those who have the opportunity to do so,” Mr Obrador said, according to comments translated by Vallarta Daily. ”It is a cosmopolitan city full of migrants, like a kind of capital of the world and of course they have problems like the ones we are going to see”.
The Mexican president reportedly continued by saying that he would not recommend against travel to New York despite crime levels there, while playing a video of an apparent robbery in America’s biggest city, according to Newsweek.
“There is no way that I say ‘do not go to New York because look at what is happening’, because it is also in bad taste, it is nosy, that is not serious”, Mr Obrador was quoted as saying of the video. “It seems like this is a movie. This is New York. The black car, look at the way it robs (the other car).”
The US State Department said last month that it had a “limited ability to” help US citizens in Mexico because of “violent crime – such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery – (which) is widespread and common in Mexico.”
Six Mexcican states were also issued a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory and are Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas and Sinola – a state well known for its violent drug cartel.
Figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime suggests Mexico had a homocide rate of 28.7 per 100,000 thousand people in 2020, compared to 6.52 per 100,000 people in the US. Less serious crimes, including robbery, were also higher in the Central American nation (81 per 100,000 people to 261).
