Calica Dispute May Affect USMCA Talks, Warns Former Official

Playa del Carmen, Mexico — The conflict over Calica in Playa del Carmen could have negative repercussions for Mexico during the renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), according to former Mexican Economy Secretary and former head of Mexico’s USMCA negotiating team, Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal.

“I believe the Calica issue will be very important. Especially if the treaty review has to go through legislative ratification in Washington; many American legislators are very angry with Mexico over how the Calica issue has been resolved,” stated the current commercial advisor.

Without entering the environmental debate, the former federal official said that Mexico must adhere to the rule of law, respecting the original contract that the company had which allowed the exploitation of limestone for export to the United States.

He asserted that the Calica issue is part of the 54 points that the United States International Trade Agency sent to the Mexican government as a preview to the USMCA renegotiation table, along with other contentious issues such as violations of energy agreements and the treatment given to other investments in fiscal matters.

Calizas Industriales del Carmen, SA de CV (Calica) is a Mexican subsidiary of Vulcan Materials Company, founded in 1986. Originally it was jointly owned by Vulcan Materials Company and Grupo ICA, but Vulcan Materials Company purchased Calica from Grupo ICA in 2001.

Until 2022, the company produced construction aggregates destined for Mexican and primarily American markets. It also provides maritime terminal and loading services for the regional industry at the Punta Venado dock.

The Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) first shut down limestone exploitation activities below the water table in January 2017, following a topographic survey for alleged non-compliance with the first, fourth, sixth, eleventh, and twelfth terms of the environmental impact authorization.

At the same time, as a safety measure, it closed exploitation below the water table, since the file review concluded that it had exceeded the authorized exploitation surface.

In late 2023, U.S. Senators Bill Hagerty and Tim Kaine sent a letter asking then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to stop “harmful actions against American companies,” referring to the closure and shutdown of the Calica-Vulcan open-pit mine in Playa del Carmen and the Punta Venado dock from where they exported stone material to the United States.

In subsequent communications, the legislators from the neighboring country warned that if the Punta Venado lands and port are confiscated by the Mexican government, “we will be forced to consider all resources available to us to ensure that no entity or individual benefits from the theft of this property.”