MEXICO CITY  — Former Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador issued a blistering statement criticizing President Trump and describing what he called a conspiracy by his administration to weaken the Mexican left.

López Obrador said an ongoing U.S. campaign against “narco-terrorism” was not a genuine attempt to solve a serious problem but a “pretext” to intervene in Mexican affairs.

After he left office in 2024, López Obrador retired to his sprawling ranch in southern Chiapas state, where he has largely stayed out of the public eye. But amid a mounting crisis for Morena, the leftist political party he founded, López Obrador reemerged Wednesday night after The Times reported that the U.S. was investigating two border state governors, both Morena members, for possible ties to organized crime.

“To be clear,” wrote López Obrador, “some U.S. officials are plotting to weaken Morena and strengthen the right-wing opposition in Mexico with the idea of once again having a subservient government ... that is vulnerable, subordinate and loyal to their interventionist designs.”

The dispute over the U.S. investigations has pushed the U.S.-Mexico relationship to perhaps its tensest point in years. This week Ronald Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, criticized President Claudia Sheinbaum, López Obrador’s successor, saying she had turned the fight against cartels “into a political dispute.”

López Obrador’s message comes amid threats of U.S. military strikes on cartel targets on Mexico soil and as the Trump administration deepens its probes into sitting Mexican officials suspected of links to cartels.

The U.S. recently indicted several prominent Morena leaders, including the governor of Sinaloa state, for aiding drug traffickers. And as The Times reported this week, it has revoked the visas of two other governors who are also under investigation.

López Obrador said the Trump administration blames Mexico “for all of its ills,” a strategy that he compared to Adolf Hitler’s “propaganda tactic of repeating lies.”

López Obrador also offered his full support for Sheinbaum, who in recent days has adopted a defiant tone, condemning the investigations into Morena officials as a U.S. smear campaign aimed at hurting her government.

She has accused “sectors of the American far right” of targeting Mexico to gain an advantage in this year’s midterm elections in the U.S. Her government has so far refused a U.S. request that it extradite Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya of Sinaloa, a longtime ally of López Obrador who is accused along with other Morena officials of protecting the Sinaloa cartel.

The U.S. has made no secret of its desire to see right-wing leaders elected in Latin America, with Trump endorsing conservative candidates in Argentina, Colombia, Honduras and Ecuador.

But Sheinbaum and López Obrador’s insistence that the U.S. investigations into Morena leaders are purely political is a risky stance.

After two decades of drug war violence and instability, a majority of Mexicans say in recent polls that organized crime is the country’s biggest challenge. And it is an open secret that in many parts of Mexico, criminals make pacts with elected leaders.

The Times investigation cited sources who said that Alfonso Durazo of Sonora and Américo Villarreal Anaya of Tamaulipas had their U.S. visas canceled and were recipients of Significant Public Benefit parole, which can be used to allow individuals to enter the U.S. to cooperate with law enforcement. The program allows noncitizens to testify before a grand jury to mitigate consequences of actual or pending charges against them or others.

Both men said the claims were baseless and denied connections to organized crime. Durazo, speaking to journalists Wednesday, said he still has his visa and is not a part of any investigations.

Zeta, an investigative news outlet in Tijuana, published a report Wednesday citing anonymous State Department sources that said that while Durazo and Villarreal may still have physical copies of their visas, they have been revoked in the agency’s system and are not valid for entry to the U.S.

The accusations are particularly significant because Villarreal and Durazo, who served as López Obrador’s security minister, are allies of the former president, who came to power on a promise to combat corruption, vowing that no one would be spared, even “brothers-in-arms.”

Sheinbaum, who has also pledged to root out corruption, has arrested dozens of local officials accused of wrongdoing, including some affiliated with Morena. But her opponents in Mexico and officials in Washington say she could be doing much more.

López Obrador, in his letter, said that when he was president, from 2018 until 2024, he had a strong relationship with Trump, whom he has in the past described as a friend.

He said he managed to stop Trump from declaring drug cartels terrorist organizations — something the White House did this year — and said Trump appeared open to “reasoned dialogue without confrontation.”

López Obrador blamed Trump’s change of heart on the “vile and sinister” intentions of the U.S. president’s “inexperienced, resentful and fanatical advisers.” He suggested Trump tell those advisors “to go to hell.”

Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.