During a hearing in the Foreign Affairs subcommittee of the House of Representatives for the Western Hemisphere, convened to evaluate security issues between Mexico and the United States, a senior official said that if Mexico buys helicopters from Russia it could be subject to sanctions under the legislation U.S
The official identified as Hugo Rodríguez said that “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently announced that Mexico was in talks to buy Russian-made helicopters.”
He added that, if that happened, Mexico would be entitled to sanctions under Section 231 of the CAATSA law, promulgated by President Donald Trump in 2017 to “counter adversaries through sanctions” and hold Russia, Iran and North Korea accountable for its “destabilizing actions” to the detriment of the United States.
Members of the committee asked Rodriguez if they had made the position clear to Mexico, to which he replied that there was communication at the Embassy level.
But at the Washington level, we have raised this as an area of concern with our counterparts in Mexico City to bring it to the Government of Mexico, “he added.
The Mexico-Russia meeting
According to reports, Lavrov said, after meeting with his Mexican counterpart Marcelo Ebrard, that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) evaluated proposals for the acquisition of helicopters from Rosoboronexport SA, the Russian state agency for the sale of defense products.
However, so far the Mexican Government has not officially ruled on this.
Before taking possession in December 2018, AMLO announced, within the framework of its austerity policy, the cancellation of a contract for the purchase of military helicopters from the American firm Lockheed Martin.
Lavrov’s announcement last week was in the framework of a tour of Latin America that included stops in Cuba and Venezuela, two countries considered ” dictatorships ” by the Trump administration, which has denounced that “external powers seek to prevail” in the region.
Source: el universal, la jornada, unotv
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