Mexico Nixes Russia Sanctions To Keep 'Good Relations', Whines About RT Being 'Censored'

[Celerity]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mexicos-president-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-declines-to-sanction-russia-over-ukraine-invasion



Mexico has declined to impose any economic sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, the country’s president said in a news conference Tuesday.

“We are not going to take any sort of economic reprisal because we want to have good relations with all the governments in the world,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said. “We do not consider that it corresponds to us, and we think that the best thing to do is to promote dialogue to achieve peace.”

The leader also condemned the “censorship” of Russian state media from platforms like Google and Facebook, after the social networks’ companies announced they would take steps to limit state-backed channels like RT.com.

Mexico’s policy departs sharply from the stance taken by many other countries in response to the Ukraine invasion. Several hit Russia with fresh sanctions and injunctions over the weekend, including the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, and Taiwan. The U.S., the E.U., the U.K., and Canada all banned a number of Russian banks from SWIFT on Saturday.


https://www.reuters.com/world/mexicos-president-says-will-not-take-any-economic-sanctions-against-russia-2022-03-01/

[Walleye]

1. Good thinking Mexico. Maybe the US can take back Baja California. It's ours after all.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. They're really thinking of taking back Texas and the Southwest.

[Walleye]

5. I'm inclined to say they can have Texas, of course I don't mean it

[Chainfire]

6. And that is a bad thing, how? ;)

[panader0]

12. Which state do you live in?

I live in Az, ten miles from Mexico. You want some US states to be given back to Mexico?
This kind of BS bothers me. Tell me where you live.

[Chainfire]

13. Did you not see the little smiley face?

I suggest that if my humor bothers you that is is not my problem.

[panader0]

14. Your "humor" is not funny.

[Chainfire]

15. I will not continue this conversation.

[panader0]

17. Do you not realize how many millions of good, solid Democrats live in red states?

Every time I see DUers bashing states or regions it makes me cringe.
And I've asked many times what state they are from and they never answer.

[Johnny999r]

24. Your "humor" is not funny

Must of hit a nerve, I got it, I saw the smiling face. But even if you didn't put the face in, I agree with your statement.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

30. Hopefully, the US can take Texas back from its homegrown fascists. nt

[Walleye]

34. Good idea.If only it were possible

[SergeStorms]

2. Their "good relations with all....

....the governments of the world " just got them an icy stare from their neighbors to the north. 😠

[Irish_Dem]

4. Now we know the Russian mob is in bed with the Mexican drug cartels.

[Celerity]

7. they have been for at least 25 years, probably much longer

RUSSIAN MOB, DRUG CARTELS JOINING FORCES

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/09/29/russian-mob-drug-cartels-joining-forces/b838dca0-5717-4c91-9d07-b798a435544d/

By Douglas Farah

September 29, 1997

Russian organized crime groups, flush with dollars, are forming alliances with Colombian drug traffickers in the Caribbean, acquiring cocaine for delivery to Europe and providing weapons to Latin American mafias, according to U.S., European and Latin American law enforcement officials. The Russian groups, operating out of Miami, New York and Puerto Rico, also are opening banks and front companies across the Caribbean, largely used to launder hundreds of millions of dollars from drug sales and other criminal activities, the sources said.

In interviews in Miami, New York, Puerto Rico and Colombia, law enforcement officials and experts on Russian crime cautioned that the growing number of alliances between Russian and Colombian criminal organizations is the most dangerous trend in drug smuggling in the hemisphere. Barry R. McCaffrey, the Clinton administration's national drug-control policy director, said, "the Russians, along with the Nigerians, are the most threatening criminal organizations based in the United States."

This is because, according to McCaffrey and others, the Russian organizations offer drug cartels access to sophisticated weapons that previously were beyond their reach. The Russians also provide access to new drug markets in Russia and other former Soviet republics at a time when consumption is falling in the United States.

In particular, the sources said, recent undercover operations have detected attempts by Russian groups to sell Colombian drug traffickers a submarine, helicopters and surface-to-air missiles. Officials said that at least two Russian combat helicopters, along with small arms, have been sold to Colombian organizations.

snip

[Irish_Dem]

10. So a very long time relationship.

Right on our border.

[JoanofArgh]

26. Thanks for the article! Very interesting.

[dalton99a]

29. +1

[Johnny999r]

21. Irish_Dem

Absolutely. We all know Mexico has one of the most corrupt governments in the world. From local police to the top in government. Obviously, the President is in bed with Russian oligarchs.

[Irish_Dem]

23. If you are a corrupt government or govt official then you are attracted to the Russians.

Yes it obviously true what you are saying, Johnny.

Even the corrupt US elected leaders are in bed with Russia.

[JoanofArgh]

25. Bingo!

[Chainfire]

8. Mexico can make the bed it intends to sleep in.

If they prefer maintaining good relations with Russia, over the US, so be it. We should start pulling our factories and our jobs out and bringing them home to American workers. Everyone and every government has choices to make and they have to be willing to accept the consequences of their decisions.

[SergeStorms]

20. Absolutely.

Just last night I heard President Biden say we should bring jobs back to the U.S. so we don't have to depend on a supply chain.

All we have to do is convince greedy corporations that paying a living wage is far superior to using slave wage earners in foreign countries to inflate their profits.

No problem there, right? I'll get right on that. See you in 40-50 years or so.

[Johnny999r]

22. SergeStorms

Exactly

[Sur Zobra]

9. Obrador is a pendejo muy grande

[Hortensis]

11. Trump admin kicked Mexico in the teeth economically, and

Mexico needed to arrange some new trade agreements. One guess who were ready to take up the slack -- like true friends. Mexico did vote for the UN Security Council condemnation of the invasion.

Reportedly, Mexico's sanctions laws don't allow it to make the kind of sanctions that would hurt Russia with "broad geopolitical reach." They're mainly geared to countering domestic money laundering and terrorism funding. The decision might be different if Mexican participation could make a real difference.

Cuba and Venezuela also refused to join sanctions on Russia, no surprise in their case as both nations have been negotiating with Russia to possibly allow Russian military installations in their countries. (Wonder if the invasion will affect their decisions. And how?)

[UTUSN]

16. So much for AMLO being messianic "for the people."

[AnnaLee]

18. So what happens to Orbrado

If the US halted all transfers of money earned in the US back home to families in Mexico, what is his future? Do immigrants head for Russia to work their way from poverty? (I'm not suggesting we should starve Mexican families but wondering why Mexico would risk relationships with the US to keep them with Russia.)

[Johnny999r]

28. AnnaLee

Could any international policy by Mexico be free of political corruption? I wonder if the cartels are so ingrained in Mexican politics and have been for so long they are treated like a third party and thus giving them a weird place at the conference table.

[moondust]

19. War criminals? No prob.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

27. How disappointing. Imagine if Russia invaded Mexico, and President Biden said,

“We are not going to take any sort of economic reprisal because we want to have good relations with all the governments in the world. We do not consider that it corresponds to us, and we think that the best thing to do is to promote dialogue to achieve peace.”

AMLO has just made the worst mistake in his time as President of Mexico.

[Buckeyeblue]

32. It's interesting really

But other than send factory jobs to Mexico what have we really done for them? We've basically kept Mexico a 3rd world country so we can exploit their close, cheap labor.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

35. Mexico had 71 years of uninterrupted rule by the (ostensibly) democratically elected PRI.

Instead of electing a government of, by, and for the people, they repeatedly elected a government of corrupt oligarchs.

I lived in Mexico for many years, and still lease the same house down there.

The slogan of the PRI years:

"The perfect dictatorship is not communism, nor the USSR, nor Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship is Mexico. Because it is a camouflaged dictatorship."

Mexico can do bad all by themselves.

The PRI maintained absolute power over the country for most of the twentieth century: besides holding the Presidency of the Republic, until 1976 all members of the Senate belonged to the PRI, while all of the state governors were also from the PRI until 1989. Throughout the seven decades that the PRI governed Mexico, the party used a combination of corporatism, co-option and (at many times, violent) repression to hold power, while usually resorting to electoral fraud when these measures were not enough. In particular, the presidential elections of 1940, 1952 and 1988 were characterized by massive irregularities and fraudulent practices denounced by both domestic and international observers. While during the early decades of PRI rule Mexico benefited from an economic boom which improved the quality of life of most people and guaranteed political and social stability, issues such as inequality, corruption and the lack of democracy and political freedoms cultivated growing resentment against the PRI, culminating in the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in which the Army killed hundreds of unarmed student demonstrators. In addition, a series of economic crises beginning in the 1970s drastically lowered the living standards of the population.

Throughout its nine-decade existence, the party has featured a very wide array of ideologies (the one in use during any given period often determined by the President of the Republic at that time). During the 1980s the party went through reforms that shaped its current incarnation, with policies characterized as center-right, such as the privatization of state-run companies, closer relations with the Catholic Church, and embracing free-market capitalism.[12][13][14] At the same time, the left-wing members of the party abandoned the PRI and founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD) in 1989.

In 1990, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa famously described Mexico under the PRI regime as being "the perfect dictatorship", stating: "I don't believe that there has been in Latin America any case of a system of dictatorship which has so efficiently recruited the intellectual milieu, bribing it with great subtlety. The perfect dictatorship is not communism, nor the USSR, nor Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship is Mexico. Because it is a camouflaged dictatorship."[16][17] The phrase became popular in Mexico and internationally, until the PRI fell from power in 2000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Revolutionary_Party

[Happy Hoosier]

31. Read the fuckin' room, Mexico....

Russia is the bad guy here. Buy a fuckin' clue, man.

[dalton99a]

33. Kick

https://www.newsweek.com/mexican-drug-cartels-asked-russia-arms-dealers-help-shooting-down-us-1234167