MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Monday once more condemned the U.S. seize of Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro, criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive international coverage in Latin America for threatening the steadiness of the hemisphere.
“We categorically reject intervention within the inner affairs of different international locations,” Sheinbaum stated in her every day information convention. “The historical past of Latin America is obvious and compelling: Intervention has by no means introduced democracy, has by no means generated well-being or lasting stability.”
“Unilateral motion and invasion can’t be the idea of worldwide relations within the twenty first century,” she stated. “They don’t result in peace or improvement.”
Her feedback got here as Trump on Sunday threatened extra navy strikes on Venezuela — and raised the potential for intervention in Mexico in addition to in Cuba, Colombia and the Danish territory of Greenland. Talking to reporters on Air Drive One, Trump stated medicine have been “pouring” via Mexico and that “we’re going to should do one thing.”
He has been threatening motion towards cartels for months, with some members of his administration suggesting that the U.S. could quickly perform drone strikes on drug laboratories and different targets inside Mexican territory. Sheinbaum has repeatedly stated such strikes could be a transparent violation of Mexican sovereignty.
“Sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples are non-negotiable,” she stated. “They’re elementary ideas of worldwide legislation and should all the time be revered with out exception.”
Sheinbaum is a part of a bloc of leftist Latin American leaders who’ve spoken out forcefully towards the U.S. after its shock assault on Caracas on Saturday morning. U.S. particular forces kidnapped Maduro, Venezuela’s leftist president, and his spouse, Cilia Flores, the previous head of the Nationwide Meeting.
Venezuela says not less than 40 folks have been killed within the assault. The couple have been indicted in New York’s Southern District on drug trafficking fees.
Proper-wing leaders within the area, alternatively, have cheered the removing of Maduro from energy.
At her information convention on Monday, Sheinbaum referred to as for cooperation amongst international locations within the area, at one level quoting Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
“Washington referred to as for good religion and justice towards all nations, and for the cultivation of peace and concord amongst all,” she stated.
Nations can not impose their wills on different international locations, she stated, and don’t have the best to their assets. That was a transparent reference to Trump’s said need to use Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.
“Solely the folks can construct their very own future, resolve their path, train sovereignty over their pure assets, and freely outline their type of authorities,” she stated. “Every nation has the inalienable proper to resolve its political, financial, and social mannequin, free from exterior strain.”
Sheinbaum warned that infighting amongst Latin American nations would damage the area economically.
“International financial competitors, significantly within the face of Asia’s development, isn’t achieved via the usage of drive … however fairly via cooperation for improvement, productive funding, innovation, training and social welfare,” she stated.
She stated Mexico was dedicated to preventing organized crime, and reminded the U.S. that it fuels that dynamic.
“The violence plaguing our nation is partly brought on by the unlawful circulate of high-powered weapons from the USA into Mexico, in addition to the intense downside of drug consumption in our neighboring nation,” she stated.
