US still has interventionist mindset: Mexican President

Mexico City: A “very interventionist” attitude still prevails in the United States although the world has entered a “new era,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.

During a routine daily press conference on Monday, Lopez Obrador questioned remarks made on Sunday by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who criticised a Mexican government initiative to overhaul the judiciary branch to combat corruption, reports Xinhua news agency.

“They cannot stop doing that (intervening in the affairs of another country), unfortunately, even though we are living in a new era,” he told reporters at the National Palace in Mexico City.

“We still have to suffer this interventionism, which I feel will gradually fade away to the extent that Mexico’s government is not a subservient government,” he added.

According to Lopez Obrador, in Washington, “they have the bad habit of sticking their noses in other places,” since their foreign policy stems from the era of the Monroe Doctrine, in which they would build up or tear down nations, send invading troops and even appoint leaders at will.

Pompeo’s statements, contained in an opinion piece published in the US newspaper The Wall Street Journal, were made with the coming US presidential elections in mind, said the Mexican president.

Lopez Obrador has often chided the US for continuing to follow an outdated doctrine devised in the 19th century to protect its economic interests in Latin America and the Caribbean.