The police detained a factory worker who was part of a group that stopped work to protest the lack of safety measures against the virus. Herika Martinez/Agence France-Presse
By Natalie Kitroeff
The New York TimesMEXICO CITY — The Trump administration and major U.S. manufacturers have pressured Mexico to keep factories that supply the United States operating during the coronavirus pandemic, even as outbreaks erupt and waves of cases and deaths sweep the companies.
Mexico must be responsive to the United States’ needs right now or, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico has said, risk losing the jobs that these factories provide.
“You don’t have ‘workers’ if you close all the companies and they move elsewhere,” Ambassador Christopher Landau said on Twitter. “Of course health comes first, but to me it seems myopic to suggest that economic effects don’t matter.”
Mexican officials have closed many factories and threatened legal action against those that remain open.
But the dispute highlights how much the two countries have come to depend on one another and how unequal that relationship remains.
Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement over 25 years ago, Mexico has become a manufacturing mecca, attracting foreign-owned factories that employ hundreds of thousands of workers along the border and churn out everything from airplane parts to televisions, largely for the American market.
Now that the response to the coronavirus pandemic is shuttering businesses and factories in both countries, the United States is urging Mexico to allow exemptions for workers whose services are essential — not to Mexico, but to the United States.
This push comes as factories near the border have become key sources of infection, according to Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez, the deputy health minister who is running Mexico’s response to coronavirus.
Mexico must be responsive to the United States’ needs right now or, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico has said, risk losing the jobs that these factories provide.
“You don’t have ‘workers’ if you close all the companies and they move elsewhere,” Ambassador Christopher Landau said on Twitter. “Of course health comes first, but to me it seems myopic to suggest that economic effects don’t matter.”
Mexican officials have closed many factories and threatened legal action against those that remain open.
But the dispute highlights how much the two countries have come to depend on one another and how unequal that relationship remains.
Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement over 25 years ago, Mexico has become a manufacturing mecca, attracting foreign-owned factories that employ hundreds of thousands of workers along the border and churn out everything from airplane parts to televisions, largely for the American market.
Now that the response to the coronavirus pandemic is shuttering businesses and factories in both countries, the United States is urging Mexico to allow exemptions for workers whose services are essential — not to Mexico, but to the United States.
This push comes as factories near the border have become key sources of infection, according to Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez, the deputy health minister who is running Mexico’s response to coronavirus.