Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that he does not want to hand over the rotating presidency of the Pacific Alliance, a regional trade bloc, to Peru because he considers it a “spurious” government.
The Pacific Alliance trade bloc is composed of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. A meeting set to be held in Peru in December was postponed amid a political crisis in the South American country, where former President Pedro Castillo was ousted and arrested after attempting to illegally dissolve the opposition-controlled Congress.
Lopez Obrador said he would consult with other member countries to decide whether Peru should assume the rotating presidency of the bloc as had been previously planned.
“I’m going to do the consultation because I don’t want to legitimize a coup,” the Mexican president said during a regular news conference.
“I do not want to deliver (the presidency) to a government I consider spurious.”
Lopez Obrador has loudly backed the leftist Castillo since he was ousted, sparking tension with Peru’s current president Dina Boluarte.
Boluarte
said on Wednesday
that Lopez Obrador was “harming the communities that comprise the Pacific Alliance” by not passing leadership of the trade bloc to her government.
During the news conference on Friday, Lopez Obrador separately said that he plans to visit Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in September.
Source: El Economista
