Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took aim at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday, urging Hispanic people in Florida not to back the governor one day after he announced his bid for the White House.
“All of his playing politics with migrants was because he wanted to be the Republican party candidate,” López Obrador said during a news conference, translated by Reuters. “I hope the Hispanics of Florida wake up and don’t give him a single vote.”
DeSantis on Wednesday announced his 2024 presidential campaign in an event on Twitter. During his campaign launch, he said he would build a wall on the United States’ southern border with Mexico, saying the border has “collapsed.”
“America’s a sovereign country. Our borders must be respected,” DeSantis said during the event, alongside Elon Musk. He added: “We cannot allow drug cartels to poison our population with fentanyl.”
Earlier this month, the Florida governor signed a sweeping immigration bill that limits social services for immigrants who don’t have permanent legal status, among other actions criticized as anti-immigration.
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López Obrador has denied that drug cartels make fentanyl in Mexico, though he has said some chemicals and finished fentanyl are smuggled into Mexico from China. China has denied the claim.
USA TODAY has reached out to DeSantis’ campaign for comment on the Mexican president’s remarks.
The governor won his 2022 reelection bid receiving 58% of the Latino vote in Florida, according to an NBC News exit poll. However, groups described as “Hispanic” and “Latino” are not entirely interchangeable.
López Obrador earlier this year criticized Republican lawmakers who have called on President Joe Biden’s administration to take military action against drug cartels in Mexico.
“We are not going to allow any foreign government to intervene and much less foreign armed forces to intervene in our territory,” López Obrador said at a news conference in March.
