Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador issued a decree Thursday designating some of his flagship public works of national security and public interest, escalating a conflict with the country’s Supreme Court.
AMLO, as the president is known, said in the decree that the construction, maintenance and operation of certain projects —the Maya Train, the Interoceanic Corridor and airports in Chiapas and Quintana Roo— are matters of national security and public interest. The decree represents an act of defiance against a ruling by the top court just hours earlier, which declared as unconstitutional a previous government attempt to give public works this key status.