Marco Rubio, a Republican legislator, is set to be the next Secretary of State of the United States, and President-elect Donald Trump will make the appointment official in the next few hours.
Rubio’s arrival to the position would mean that he would be in charge of the foreign relations of the United States, and with that could pose a problem for former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Both have clashes from the past, and now Rubio has the power to be able to prove what he accused: that former President Obrador handed Mexico over to the drug cartels.
In addition, Marco Rubio maintains a different position from López Obrador regarding diplomatic relations with countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, which he has referred to as “dictatorships.”
What are the controversies between Marco Rubio and AMLO?
Marco Rubio has spoken out throughout his career as a Republican legislator against left-wing governments, in addition to condemning elections in countries that he considers dictatorships.
Unlike the current incumbent, Antony Blinken, he has shown concern for the rule of law, as well as democracy and security, and it is on these points that he has criticized López Obrador.
In 2021, when President Joe Biden praised López Obrador’s government at a trilateral meeting where Canada also participated, Marco Rubio said that the then Mexican president supported tyrants.
“How is it that we are gathered here today to talk about democracy and embrace democracy, but we have among us democratically elected leaders who support tyrants in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba,” Rubio said at the time.
In 2022, after López Obrador decided not to go to the Summit of the Americas because Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were not invited, Rubio returned to the charge and accused him of handing over sections of Mexico to organized crime.
“I am glad to see that the Mexican president, who has handed over sections of his country to drug cartels and is an apologist for tyranny in Cuba, a murderous dictator in Nicaragua and a drug trafficker in Venezuela, will not be in the United States,” Rubio said.
Rubio’s vision is expected to be against leftist governments in America, in addition to the United States seeing China as an enemy country.
Why would Marco Rubio be a problem for AMLO?
According to El Financiero journalist Pablo Hiriart, it is possible that Marco Rubio now has tools to demonstrate what López Obrador asked him to do: that the former Mexican president has handed Mexico over to drug traffickers.
“If he reaches the position of Secretary of State, as is possible, Marco Rubio will have greater possibilities of responding to López Obrador’s challenge. It is not difficult to prove that in the previous six-year term, protection was given to at least one of the world’s major drug cartels,” wrote Pablo Hiriart in his column this Monday, November 11.
Source: elfinanciero
