WASHINGTON – Mexico’s ambassador to the United States denounced Louisiana’s junior senator, John N. Kennedy, for racist comments and for suggesting a military invasion south of the border.
“I don’t think the people of Louisiana feel represented by the vulgar and racists word you used,” wrote Esteban Moctezuma, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States in a letter dated May 12 and publicly released Monday. “You are obliged to offer an apology to your citizens because what you asserted is not worthy of the state of Louisiana, known for being a cultural melting pot.”
Kennedy and his press office did not respond immediately to a request for comment Wednesday.
Moctezuma pointed out to Kennedy that Louisiana greatly benefits from the state’s relationship with Mexico. Trade between Mexico and Louisiana amounts to about $40 billion. The difference between goods bought and sold are in Louisiana’s favor by about $25 billion. The trade with Mexico generates work to support 70,000 families in Louisiana, the ambassador wrote.
The ambassador reacted to Kennedy’s grilling of Drug Enforcement Administration Director Anne Milgram during a March 10 Senate Appropriations hearing.
Four times Kennedy brought up the possibility of the United States military and/or police intervention to wipe out Mexico’s organized crime cartels that are making then smuggling Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid anesthetic, into the United States.
“This is the way the American people, whose sons and daughters are dying look at it,” Kennedy said May 10. “Our economy is $23 trillion. Mexico’s economy is $1.3 trillion. Ours is 18 times bigger. We buy $400 billion every year from Mexico. Without the people of America, Mexico figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback. So, why don’t you and the president, embarrassing no one, get on the phone and call (Mexican) President (Andrés Manuel) López Obrador and make him a deal he can’t refuse to allow our military and our law enforcement officials to go into Mexico and work with his to stop the cartels? Why don’t you do that?”
After a pause, Milgram responded: “Senator, what I am doing every single day is working with the incredible men and women of DEA who are risking their lives…”
Kennedy interrupted: “And I appreciate that but you’re not doing what would work. Why aren’t you doing what would work?”
Kennedy is much sought after by the media because every day on Capitol Hill, the Madisonville Republican makes colorfully rustic quotes. But these comments initially went little noticed.
The Mexico Solidarity Project, a grassroots group based in San Diego, on March 11 equated “Kennedy’s rant” to the rhetoric used before the U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. The group recalled recent comments by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken saying that the Biden administration could designate the Mexican cartels a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which is the first step towards justifying unilateral military action by the U.S.
Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard then told Mexican media that Kennedy’s comments amounted to “racism against Mexicans, and in general all Spanish speakers.” Bloggers picked up Ebrard’s outrage, which were reported over the weekend by Gambit, a New Orleans weekly, and by British newspapers.
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