During 2019, the first year of andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, the U.S. government allocated $443.9 million to Mexico, mainly for the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), for military financing and international narcotics control.
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According to the latest foreign assistance report of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 2019 – the last year of which full information is available – $443 million was earmarked for $964,994 for different actors and activities in Mexico.
In the case of the Foreign Military Financing program, the amount received by Sedena was $165 million $334,336 “for the procurement of defense items, defense services, as well as design and construction.”
Mexico also received $17.9 million for training and equipment, as well as courses at U.S. military and naval academies.
For the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement program, $193 million was allocated $374,551 million.
Of the total resources disbursed by the US government in that year for Mexico, 45% went to military activities.
On May 7, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pointed to USAID as a graft for funding the Mexican organization Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), which he considers as a opponent of his government.
Read more: The Sedena and its growing abuse of force
Days earlier, on 23 March, the Undersecretariat for Human Rights, Population and Migration, belonging to the Secretariat of the Government (Segob), signed a letter of collaboration with USAID to strengthen actions for the protection, respect and guarantee of human rights.
The agreement consists of working together, through the activity Promoting Accountability for Human Rights (RED-DH), implemented by Chemonics International Inc., with the secretariat’s areas of care, such as the National Searching Commission (CNB), the Human Rights Defense Unit (UDDH), and the Directorate-General for Human Rights Care Strategies, in order to design and develop a monitoring platform in the implementation of the National Human Rights Programme 2020–2024, the Segob reported.
The USAID agency was created in 1961 by then-President John F. Kennedy, and provides resources to different countries. In Mexico, the organization has been present since the 1970s, providing resources to government and civil society initiatives.
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