Mexico and Brazil Rebut Trump’s Claims About Violence in Their Cities

The leaders of three 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, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the district.)

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, Brazil and Colombia 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.

“Mexico City has a third of the murder rate that Washington has,” Ms. Brugada said, adding that the rate of homicides in her city was around 10 per 100,000 people in 2024, as opposed to the average 27 murders per 100,000 people seen in Washington. “We fortunately have a situation that many parts of the world would like to have.”

Although parts of Mexico have overall high murder rates, Mexico City has often been an outlier, even compared with American cities like Los Angeles or Phoenix.

But the capital has seen occasional episodes of violence that have shocked the population, including recent ones. In May, two of Ms. Brugada’s top aides were shot and killed in broad daylight, in what the mayor called a “direct attack.”

Mexico and the United States have spent months negotiating over trade and coordinating to stop the flow of migrants and drugs, and Ms. Sheinbaum’s handling of Mr. Trump has won her approval at home. She has also started an aggressive crackdown on one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels, although Mr. Trump has pushed for even more action.

In Brazil, the reaction was similarly swift, perhaps reflecting disputes with the Trump administration that have thrust the two most populous nations of the Western Hemisphere into their biggest diplomatic crisis in decades.

On Tuesday, the authorities in the federal district encompassing the capital, Brasília, delivered a letter to the U.S. Embassy.

In the missive, addressed to Mr. Trump, Gov. Ibaneis Rocha disputed the American leader’s claims that the Brazilian capital was besieged by violent criminals.

“It is necessary to clarify, based on official data, that this perception does not reflect the reality of the Brazilian capital,” Mr. Rocha said in the letter. “This information is misleading, possibly resulting from the current lack of a more consistent dialogue between Brazil and the United States of America.”

The letter, dated Aug. 12, cited a string of social programs that have succeeded in reducing street crime, violence and homelessness in recent years. There are 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people in Brasília, according to data from the district’s public security department.

Ties between the United States and Brazil have frayed badly in recent weeks, especially over trade and the case of a former Brazilian president and Trump ally accused of trying to hold on to power after losing the 2022 election.

Mr. Trump has imposed 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods, in large part because the Brazilian authorities have charged the former president, Jair Bolsonaro. The current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said that Brazil’s judicial system is independent and that dropping the charges is not up for negotiation.

President Gustavo Petro of Colombia also responded to Mr. Trump on Tuesday, though he did not directly comment on violent crime.

“If he doesn’t know Bogotá, he can’t know it,” Mr. Petro wrote on social media. “President Trump should know, and if not be told, that Bogotá is one of the places on earth where not a single child dies of hunger — that makes it one of the best places on earth.”

Mr. Petro sparred with Mr. Trump this year over people deported from the United States. But after U.S. threats of tariffs, sanctions and travel restrictions, Colombia agreed to receive deportation flights, according to the White House.

Bogotá has struggled with violent crime in recent years, with a rate of 15.2 homicides per 100,000 people in 2024, according to its city council. But most of the violence that has afflicted Colombia has taken place in rural areas, not cities.