Washington.— US President Joe Biden must confront his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, over the invasion of the Mexican Armed Forces at the Punta Venado Maritime Terminal in Quintana Roo, under concession to the US company Vulcan Materials, Republican lawmakers urged.
After learning that forces from the Secretary of the Navy (SEMAR) and the Quintana Roo State Preventive Police supported the State Attorney General’s Office to execute an order obtained by the Cemex company to enter the Punta Venado Maritime Terminal, the Republicans Biden was asked to act.
“Last year I urged President Biden to confront President López Obrador about the Mexican government’s aggression towards Vulcan Materials. As usual, President Biden buried his head in the sand,” said Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville.
“The illegal seizure of the Vulcan port facility is just the latest example of the Mexican government taking advantage of President Biden’s weakness, and the situation will only get worse until the President addresses it head-on.”
According to sources close to the company, the Mexican authorities never presented the Sac-Tun company (a subsidiary of Vulcan Materials) with a court order to endorse the invasion of its facilities and they ignore a flat suspension granted on Thursday by a federal court against his acts.
“It is shameful that this Mexican Presidential Administration would rather seize US assets than the fentanyl that kills hundreds of Americans every day. Mexico should be more focused on going after cartels than law-abiding companies,” said Senator Katie Britt .
“President Biden must raise this directly with President López Obrador and assure the American people that this will not be tolerated.”
Since the 1980s, the American Vulcan Materials has enjoyed the concession to use the Puerto Venado Maritime Terminal and currently has it valid until the year 2037; according to a video from a security camera, elements of the Cemex company accompanied the break-in.
“This armed takeover of the Vulcan property shows just how corrupt the Mexican government has become. This is a serious abuse by the Mexican government that President Biden must immediately respond to in the strongest possible terms,” said Gary Palmer, Republican congressman from Alabama.
Located with its headquarters in the city of Birmingham, Vulcan Materials is the largest construction aggregates company and its operation in Puerto Venado includes the exploitation of a limestone mine that the López Obrador Administration decided to close since the first half of 2022.
In May 2022, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) temporarily closed the limestone extraction operations by Sac-Tun, but the operations of the Punta Venado Maritime Terminal continued without alteration until the irruption last Tuesday.
