The Mumford--Tate conjecture for products of abelian varieties

Let $X$ be a smooth projective variety over a finitely generated field $K$ of characteristic~$0$ and fix an embedding $K \subset \mathbb{C}$. The Mumford--Tate conjecture is a precise way of saying that certain extra structure on the $\ell$-adic \'etale cohomology groups of~$X$ (namely, a Galois representation) and certain extra structure on the singular cohomology groups of~$X$ (namely, a Hodge structure) convey the same information. The main result of this paper says that if $A_1$ and~$A_2$ are abelian varieties (or abelian motives) over~$K$, and the Mumford--Tate conjecture holds for both~$A_1$ and~$A_2$, then it holds for $A_1 \times A_2$. These results do not depend on the embedding $K \subset \CC$.