The United States pressed on Tuesday, Mexico, to revive the border assembly plants, the key to the country's supply chain, which includes defense servicers, as more workers demonstrated protests and walkouts at the facilities due to fears over the COVID-19 pandemic.

In connection to this, the US Ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, launched a campaign on Twitter urging initiatives to ensure the supply chains are intact. On his tweet, the official expressed his concern about the lockdowns brought by COVID-19.

Landau mentioned damaging the flow of goods and parts that feed companies in the three countries of the free trade zone of North America, specifically Canada, the United States, and Mexico, along with the warning that their responses are not coordinated, the said chains can vanish.

Also, as part of his tweet, Landau said risks are everywhere although, "we don't all stay home," afraid that there would be a car accident. He added, the economy's destruction is a health threat, as well.

Voicing Similar Concerns

According to the US undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, Ellen Lord, on Monday, voiced similar concerns in Washington. She said they see the effects on the industrial base by some pockets of closure worldwide.

Specifically, Lord noted Mexico, where there are a group of businesses that are affecting "many of our major primes." The undersecretary, who mentioned the vitality of Mexico's border plants in the airframe production of the US also said, she was planning to speak to Marcelo Ebrard, the Mexican Foreign Minister on Tuesday to seek help for the reopening of the international suppliers there.

The Foreign Relations Department of Mexico declined to confirm if such a discussion had taken place. However, the Economy Department of Mexico later wrote, "the two governments are into discussions for the protection of their citizens' health."

Similarly, the department also said the two nations' talks were intended to protect their economies' productive incorporation. No further details on the said discussions have been given.

The Maquiladoras

The initiative took place as even more workers demonstrated protests and walkouts at the border assembly plants, known as the "maquiladoras" due to apprehensions that the facilities have turned breeding grounds for COVID-19 outbreaks.

Primarily, the struggle at the so-called maquiladora plants is described to be "twofold": First, most of the plants refused to close in line with the orders of the government to shut down non-essential businesses. Second, a lot of companies want to send their employees home on a two-week vacation at half-pay, which, in most conditions, amount to lower than $30 each week.

Also, a dozen plants closed, and roughly 180,000 of the 300,000 industrial workers of the city were idle. Emphasizing the situation's complexities, more than 30 plants deemed "essential" continued to be fully operational, and 35 were partially running.

The state government noted that around 28 plants, which are not considered essential, had declined order to close, saying that officials were coming to their location to demand closure. Incidentally, Mexico presently has roughly 9,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 857 fatalities.

 

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