“She and her team deserve our support and that of all honest citizens, for their denunciation against the unhealthy political pressures she receives”, the general secretary of the National Association of Public and Private Employees (ANEP), Albino Vargas, was quoted as saying by the El Mundo newspaper.

The executive, whose “fault” sanctioned by the United States was to defend investigations for contracts with Huawei and the 5G process linked to China, clarified that her work in that position since 2017 was alien to external or political pressures.

Machuca described her visa cancellation as a “serious attack against our sovereignty and freedom”, a criterion also shared by the deputies of the Progressive Liberal Party Johanna Obando and Cynthia Córdoba, whose visas were also cancelled earlier by Washington.

Both legislators affirmed that the US decision against them, taken on February 19, coincides with the visit to the country earlier that month of the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who threatened then to punish local collaborators associated with Chinese companies.

The official’s statements alluded more directly to Obando, who was very critical of the government for a decree on the Budapest Convention, which excluded Chinese companies from participating in the bidding process for 5G networks in Costa Rica.

According to the newspaper, the list of officials whose official permission to enter the US territory has been cancelled by the US amounts to five.

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