‘Mexico is safer than the US,’ says Mexico president after American tourist kidnappings

Mexico’s president claimed Monday that his country is safer than the United States, a week after two US citizens were killed and two kidnapped, then later rescued, in the border city of Matamoros.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said US travel warnings and reports of violence in Mexico were the result of a conspiracy by conservative politicians and US media outlets to smear his administration.

Despite López Obrador’s assurances that Mexico was safe for travel, the FBI confirmed last week that three other women from the small Texas town of Peñitas have been missing in Mexico since late February.

“Mexico is safer than the United States,” López Obrador said at his morning news briefing. “There is no problem in traveling safely in Mexico.”

Mexico's nationwide homicide rate is about 28 per 100,000 inhabitants. By comparison, the U.S. homicide rate is barely one-quarter as high, at around 7 per 100,000.

The president brushed off continued concern over violence. Currently, the U.S. State Department has “do not travel” advisories for six of Mexico's 32 states plagued by drug cartel violence, and “reconsider travel” warnings for another seven states.

“This is a campaign against Mexico by these conservative politicians in the United States who do not want the transformation of our country to continue,” López Obrador said.

The Mexican president included U.S. media outlets in the supposed conspiracy.

“These conservative politicians ... dominate the majority of the news media in the United States,” he said. “This violence is not a reality,” he added. “It is pure, vile manipulation.”