Mexico ‘safer’ than US despite cartel killings, says leader

MEXICO’S president has claimed his country is safer than the United States amid a row over drug cartel murders.

Four Americans were kidnapped this month and two killed as they travelled to the city of Matamoros across the border.

A video of the bodies of the men being dragged on to the back of a truck in broad daylight shocked the American public. Several members of a violent cartel were arrested soon after.

“Mexico is safer than the United States,” said Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president, yesterday. “There’s no problem with travelling safely around Mexico,” he told a conference in response to a question about US travel warnings for Mexico.

Last Friday, the US embassy and consulates in Mexico issued a reminder after reports of the kidnapping.

Mr López Obrador cited a recent rise in Americans residing in Mexico as evidence of an improving security situation in the country.

However, murder rates were around four times higher in Mexico than in the US in 2020, according to data published by the World Bank.