Mexico will not join the U.S. and several European countries that are imposing economic sanctions on the Russian government in response to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday that his country will not place sanctions on Russia due to his desire to maintain "good relations with all governments in the world," according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and several European Union countries have announced harsh economic sanctions on many Russian businesses and diplomats, along with personal financial sanctions to freeze any international assets held by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The announcement from López Obrador came just a day after he and the Mexican tourism minister said that Mexico would not follow the EU in blocking Russian airlines from landing at airports in the country, according to Mexico News Daily. Over the weekend, Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco also posted a widely criticized series of tweets showcasing various statistics about Russian tourism in Mexico and the money that has come into the country related to tourism from Russia.
The Mexican president also criticized what he considered to be censorship of Russian state-owned media, as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Reddit and YouTube have all taken steps in recent days to combat misinformation or propaganda regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, including halting advertising revenue from being distributed to several Russian state-owned outlets.
"We're not going to take any kind of economic reprisal because we want to have good relations with all the governments in the world, and we want to be able to talk with the parties in conflict," López Obrador said when asked about his stance on the sanctions from other countries.
"We do not consider that it corresponds to us, and we think that the best thing is to promote dialogue to achieve peace," he was quoted by CNN.
Russia has developed close economic and governmental relationships with several other Latin American countries including Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, Newsweek has previously reported. Those relationships have also included increased military commitments and strategic agreements, as Russian diplomats visited the three countries last month.
Financial experts have also said that the sanctions against Russia could likely be severe enough to have an impact on the Latin American countries that were using Russian assistance to deal with U.S. sanctions levied against their governments, according to the Miami Herald.
One economist told the Herald that several companies connected to the Venezuelan government had begun using Russian banks to make payments to other countries following sanctions introduced by the Trump administration.
Update 3/1/22 3:00 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional context and information.
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