Ken Salazar, former US ambassador, denies that AMLO was involved in drug trafficking
Ken Salazar maintains that he lacks evidence linking Andrés López Obrador to alleged agreements with drug trafficking lords in Mexico
Ken Salazar, former United States ambassador to Mexico, ruled out that Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), former president of Mexico, had been involved with drug trafficking cartels during his administration.
In an interview with journalist Jorge Ramos, the 71-year-old American lawyer revealed that during the period in which he served as a diplomat in Mexico (between September 2021 and January 2025) he never found evidence that the left-wing president had agreements with drug trafficking leaders, as pointed out by some of his political opponents.
"I never had evidence that López Obrador, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was doing things of that type. No, no, that evidence was never presented to me and I say that and I do have respect for President López Obrador.
What was known is that there was corruption in Mexico, in many places in the government, from local places to where it reaches. The case of people who served in the cabinet is very well known, including Genaro [“José,” says] García Luna, where they were found by the juries to be very corrupt. That was known,” he stressed.
The diplomat, who was also Secretary of the Interior during the administration headed by Barack Obama, is about to release a book about his memoirs under the title: “Borderlands: My Fight for an Inclusive America.”
In the work, Salazar assures that the former president stopped responding to his messages after the arrest of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, in July 2024, because he was not pleased to know that the United States was behind it.
“I wrote several private notes to AMLO expressing my concerns and suggesting alternatives to his judicial reform,” he points out.
The complex thing to assimilate is that the former ambassador from Colorado does not present any evidence to support his testimony and that calls into question any assertion expressed.
So far, AMLO has not commented on the comments of the diplomat with whom he spoke at several events, but some of the topics addressed in the book soon to be put on sale promise to be controversial at least for the current team of officials in charge of the Mexican government and its secretaries of state.