Summit of the Americas / Meetings With Ken Salazar

Summit of the Americas. President López Obrador has not confirmed his attendance to the Summit of the Americas and said he will wait until all invited countries are announced. The Mexican president said he will wait until the US responds to his petition of inviting all countries in the continent to the conference. Based on that, a decision will be made.

Kevin O’Reilly, National Coordinator of the Summit, made clear that Venezuela and Nicaragua will “absolutely not” receive an invitation. López Obrador assured that Mexico will participate in the convention but if some countries are excluded, he will not be personally attending but will send a delegation headed by Minister of Foreign Relations Marcelo Ebrard. 

Meetings with Ken Salazar. US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar met at least three times this week with President López Obrador to discuss other topics than his attendance to the Summit of the Americas. Today, López Obrador said he met with the ambassador to talk about the interest of US companies in the energy and transport sectors. Around 15 to 18 corporations are looking to invest in the country and the president said the government is fulfilling its commitment to receive and attend to them.

Human trafficking and extortion in Sinaloa. Minister of Defense Luis Cresencio Sandoval informed that human trafficking, extortion, car thefts and high-impact crimes are on the rise in Sinaloa, with 83 percent of the incidents concentrated in three municipalities: Culiacan, Mazatlan y Ahome.

At the national level, Sinaloa is in 11th place regarding the most homicides with cases decreasing. For vehicle theft, the state is in 15th place, 18th in human trafficking and 24th regarding extortion.

Last Tuesday was registered as the most violent day of the year and the second one with the most homicides in the López Obrador administration. This reflects the current violence wave in the country, with a total of 33,308 homicides in 2021, after the two most violent years in history for the country with 34,690 murder victims in 2019 and 34,554 in 2020.

The Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) reported on Monday a total of 9,895 homicide victims nationally in 1Q22, representing an interannual decrease of 12.3 percent.