Why Has AMLO Accused USAID of a “Coup Against Mexico”?

“It’s not like USAID is going to invade somebody,” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Obama-era chief Gayle Smith told the New York Times in April.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is apparently not so sure.

U.S. organizations like USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Ford Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation have long had funding agreements with civil society organizations in Mexico—a feature of bilateral relations for some 60 years. Major civil society efforts in Mexico promoting press freedom, access to justice, government transparency, corporate responsibility, and freedom from...