The leaders of two of Latin America’s biggest capitals on Tuesday responded with indignation to President Trump’s assertions that their cities were plagued by violent crime, disputing his remarks as he announced a federal takeover of the local police in Washington, D.C.
As he addressed the takeover and a deployment of the National Guard, Mr. Trump compared crime in Washington to the levels of violence in cities that he called “some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on earth.” (Violent crime in Washington hit a 30-year low last year.)
Mr. Trump later said that Washington’s rate of violent crime was higher than in capitals of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Iraq.
“Do you want to live in places like that?” he asked reporters. “I don’t think so.”
Early on Tuesday, leaders in Mexico and Brazil defended their cities, calling Mr. Trump misinformed — and, in the case of Mexico’s president, agreeing that her capital had a lower murder rate than Washington’s.
“That is true,” President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, a former Mexico City mayor, told reporters. “What we don’t agree with is when he said it was the most insecure city in Latin America, because it’s not.”
The city’s current mayor, Clara Brugada, went further, saying that Mr. Trump’s notion of Mexico City was all wrong.
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The post Mexico and Brazil Rebut Trump’s Claims About Violence in Their Cities appeared first on New York Times.
