Mexico closes U.S.-owned plant for allegedly refusing to sell ventilators to Mexican hospitals

Authored by ctvnews.ca and submitted by n0x0ne

TIJUANA, MEXICO -- The northern Mexico border state of Baja California closed a plant run by the Anglo-American health care firm Smiths Medical Friday for allegedly refusing to sell ventilators to Mexican hospitals.

Baja California Gov. Jaime Bonilla said the firm refused to sell Mexico some of the machines, which are badly needed to treat patients with coronavirus.

Bonilla said the firm had continued to operate its assembly plant under the argument it provided an "essential" service, when most non-essential plants have been ordered closed to combat the pandemic.

But Bonilla ordered the Smiths Medical factory closed, because he argued it was providing no such essential service to Mexicans, and thus was not obeying health emergency contingency measures.

"We said to them `if you want us to consider you essential, you have to provide some benefit to the people of Baja California, by selling us ventilators, because we need them,"' Bonilla said. "They said `no, we are not going to sell you anything, we are just going to continue to use your labour'."

Bonilla accused the company of contacting Mexico's foreign relations secretary and the U.S. Ambassador to try to stave off the closure order. But he vowed no to cave in to the pressure.

The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Industry sources have argued the factory is an export-only plant that operates under special rules that allow it to import raw materials and parts duty-free, on the condition they be re-exported and not sold on the local market.

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the company is owned by U.K.-based Smiths Group plc.

Mexico now has 3,844 case of the new coronavirus, with 233 deaths nationwide.

RelaxItWillWorkOut on April 11st, 2020 at 03:38 UTC »

This is why we need a global response to pandemics and not an every man for himself approach. Both sides lose if we don't work together and infected countries will eventually infect safe ones.

amigable_satan on April 11st, 2020 at 03:18 UTC »

Baja California Gov. Jaime Bonilla said the firm refused to sell Mexico some of the machines, which are badly needed to treat patients with coronavirus.

The firm had continued to operate its assembly plant under the argument it provided an "essential" service, when most non-essential plants have been ordered closed to combat the pandemic.

Bonilla ordered the Smiths Medical factory closed, because he argued it was providing no such essential service to Mexicans, and thus was not obeying health emergency contingency measures.

The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Industry sources have argued the factory is an export-only plant that operates under special rules that allow it to import raw materials and parts duty-free, on the condition they be re-exported and not sold on the local market.

Best TL;DR: Export only plant that produces medical equipment was allowed to continue operations because it counted as essential. After they didn't sell ventilators to Mexican hospitals Bonilla declared that since the worker's labour was not helping Mexico it would not be essential to Mexico and closed it.

HavockBlade on April 11st, 2020 at 02:10 UTC »

But Bonilla ordered the Smiths Medical factory closed, because he argued it was providing no such essential service to Mexicans, and thus was not obeying health emergency contingency measures.--that makes sense to me like "essential to whom" and now instead of payin for it they can just make it themselves. im sure that this wont be the only time something like this happens. thanks to the money game its every country for themselves. sooner or later the number will get high enough to where the term "proprietary" will stop having meaning