“If our friends in Mexico are watching this hearing, they will understand that it is not in their interest if they are looking to renew their free trade agreement with the United States, to have a United States Senator asking a nominee for Deputy Secretary of State about this terrible problem,” said Ambassador Christopher Landau, former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and nominee to be Deputy Secretary of State. “The headline should be about great investment opportunities in all of our countries in North America.”
WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today obtained a commitment from Ambassador Christopher Landau, nominee to be Deputy Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, that the State Department would strongly support American firms facing foreign expropriation threats in the Western Hemisphere and around the world. Examples of such American firms include Vulcan Materials Company in Mexico and Honduras Próspera in Honduras.
“You and I have talked specifically about the expropriation of Vulcan Materials,” Hagerty said. “Their quarries, their deep water port, their properties in Mexico. Those aggregates that they mine… are deeply critical to the infrastructure that we actually put in place in places like Florida, Louisiana, because there’s not an aggregate source…What the Mexican government has done is come in and taken this property from Vulcan materials, an Alabama company, an American company—and they have a mine in Quintana Roo—they’ve got this deep water port on the Yucatan Peninsula, and my fear is that that deep water port is going to be for sale to the highest bidder if the Mexican government gets it hand on it. And I can tell you who that highest bidder will be: it will be the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. Think about having a [CCP-controlled] deep water port that close…to the United States of America.”
“Could I get your perspective on how U.S. companies abroad, who are facing this type of illegitimate activity, whether it be in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, how will you expect us to approach this?” Hagerty asked.
“When I served as ambassador, my number one job was to protect American interests in Mexico, where I was serving as ambassador.” said Ambassador Landau. “If an American company is being threatened or harassed by the local government, it seems to me all our ambassadors have to understand that that is not a favor they are doing the company by standing up for their interests. That is their job as the representatives of our country. We want to support Americans, whether they be businesses or individuals. I am, as you are, extremely concerned about the actions of the Mexican government with respect to the Vulcan Materials plant and the aggregate.”
“I can certainly commit to you that on day one, if I am confirmed, I will call the Mexican government to address that problem and express our very strong concerns about what has happened to that American investment in Mexico,” Landau continued. “And I can also say that I would hope that if our friends in Mexico are watching this hearing, they will understand that it is not in their interest if they are looking to renew their free trade agreement with the United States, to have a United States Senator asking a nominee for Deputy Secretary of State about this terrible problem. The headline should be about great investment opportunities in all of our countries in North America. So, it makes me sad for a lot of the Mexicans who I know are trying to increase trade that we wind up stuck on this issue, and I very much hope the Mexican government will be able to resolve that problem even before I take office, if, in fact, I am confirmed.”
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