Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), had a very appropriate response to remarks made by U.S. National Security Council official Juan Gonzalez, who told an interviewer from the daily Milenio that Mexico should be wary of accepting COVID vaccines from Russia and China. Gonzalez, who is the head of the NSC’s Western Hemisphere Division, was in Mexico as part of the U.S. delegation sent to discuss the border crisis with Mexican Foreign Ministry and other officials. The problems with the Russian and Chinese vaccines, he told his interviewer, were the “conditions” and “geopolitical calculations” attached to them, alleging that the two powers had ulterior motives and sought special benefits in exchange for providing the vaccines. .
In contrast, Gonzalez asserted, the U.S. only has a “strategic interest in the prosperity and security of Mexicans” at heart. Naturally, he said, the U.S. is focused on its own recovery but “we’re also focused on the whole world, and with an emphasis on Latin America obviously, given our national interests.” Mexico, he said, will of course have to decide what is in its interests, but emphasized that the U.S. seeks a very close cooperation with Mexico, and would never “intimidate, threaten or seek a benefit at the cost of the Mexican people.”
