El Graduado
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The situation is this: The US company CALICA made a Mexican company which then bought the land. The Mexican company leased the land back to the US company. The Mexican Federal government granted the company the right to quarry the land, with the proviso they make a ferry port for Cozumel. The company built the Punta Venado ferry port as well as a commercial port for loading its limestone unto ships taking the stuff to the US (mostly used for aggregate in road building) as well as a school for its workers, a whole colonia in Playa del Carmen for its workers, and paying to stabilize and protect the Maya ruins found on its property. These ruins are spectacular, but INAH keeps them closed to the public. You can see them in my newest book, True History of Playa del Carmen. Anyway, nobody in Cozumel or Playa ever had any complaints. Calica/Vulcan paid their taxes, employed lots of workers, and just went about their business with no problems. Then, the Mexican company Cemex made a 20-year agreement with Calica to use Calica's port to unload Cemex's cement products. When the 20-year contract expired, Cemex wanted to renew it with Calica, but the two companies could not reach a new agreement. About this time, someone put a bug in the ear of AMLO, who is a lot like the Mexican president Lazaro Cardenas, the one who expropriated all the US Banks and oil companies in Mexico in 1939. AMLO doesn't like Americans making a profit on Mexican soil. So, AMLO says that the permits that Calica originally had been granted were illegal, and he terminated them. Once he made them stop the quarrying, he tried to pressure Calica into gifting the Mexican government the land or turning the place into a water park (like we need another waterpark!). Calica declined to give up the land or make it a water park and is trying to get their old permits put back into play. In the meantime, Cemex wanted to get around the problem of not having a contract with Calica to unload at Calica's port, so two days ago, a Cemix ship landed at the port and a bevy of armed Mexican Marines, and National Guardsmen took over the port and stood guard while Cemex illegally unloaded at Calica's port. Calica has complained to the US ambassador in Mexico and to the Mexican Ambassador in Washington. Calica may have a card to play with the US government since Calica supplies the majority of aggregate for road construction in the US and the Biden administration's infrastructure plan needs this aggregate. This story isn't even close to being over yet...
The story on the stone from Cuba is that AMLO needed ballast for his pet railway project, but didn't want to deal with Calica. Being a leftist kinda guy, he decided to throw a bone to the Cuban regime and buy the ballast there and then ship it to Yucatan. Kinda like shipping coals to Newcastle. I am sure that Calica would have been fine with selling ballast to Mexico from their quarry, but I can imagine AMLO's consternation over the idea of paying a US company for Mexican limestone!
