Mexico’s president to send diplomatic note over US funding for a Mexican anti-corruption NGO

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president lashed out at U.S. funding for a Mexican anti-corruption nonprofit group Wednesday, and said he will send a diplomatic note to the U.S. government in protest.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed the group is part of the conservative opposition, and shouldn’t receive foreign funding or tax deductible contributions. He published detailed financial information on the group and vowed to send a bill to Congress to change the rules on tax deductible contributions.

“I think that there is open intervention by the U.S. government in the sovereign affairs of Mexico,” López Obrador said. He sent a similar protest note in 2021, with no apparent result. The U.S. State Department generally does not comment on diplomatic correspondence.

According to documents presented at the president’s morning news briefing, a small amount of funding for the group — about $685,000 — came from U.S. charitable foundations over the last eight years.

A larger chunk — about $5 million in recent years — allegedly came from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is administered by the State Department.

López Obrador has complained about the funding for years and said he would also write a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden. “I am sure he has not been informed about this situation,” the Mexican president said. But López Obrador already sent a similar letter to Biden in 2023.

López Obrador said he will also ask prosecutors and tax authorities to investigate the donations.

The group, Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, denies that it is allied with any political party. The group monitors government spending and programs for abuses. It was founded three years before López Obrador took office and has criticized previous governments and other parties.

The organization has issued reports critical of some of López Obrador’s major initiatives, including the cancellation of a partially built Mexico City airport and the construction of a costly tourist train around the Yucatan Peninsula.

The group’s founder, Claudio X. González, has openly endorsed opposition candidates in the past.

USAID often supports civil society groups, usually related to human rights or democracy promotion, in many countries. In some nations, such groups sometimes run afoul of local governments.

While López Obrador said tax deductions for the group’s contribution constituted a partisan misuse of government funds, he has openly used taxpayer-funded government television stations to support the ruling party.

Mexico’s president has long sparred with journalists, civic and environmental groups that have criticized his administration, and has used confidential tax and banking information to criticize their funding and salaries.

López Obrador is the latest leader in Latin America, and around the world, who has railed against outside funding for nongovernmental organizations.

In 2013, Bolivia’s then-President Evo Morales expelled USAID from his country, alleging that it was working to undermine his government.

In recent years, the Nicaraguan government has passed a number of laws making it more difficult for nongovernmental organizations to operate, and in some cases seized their offices.