MEXICO CITY — The Trump administration and major U.S. manufacturers have successfully pressured Mexico to keep factories that supply the United States operating during the coronavirus pandemic, even as outbreaks erupt and waves of cases and deaths sweep the companies.

The lobbying group for large manufacturers in the United States pressed Mexico to reopen plants south of the border, effectively putting American interests ahead of Mexican public health measures.

And in a blunt warning, the U.S. ambassador said that if Mexico did not respond to American needs, it would lose the jobs these factories provide.

“You don’t have ‘workers’ if you close all the companies and they move elsewhere,” Ambassador Christopher Landau said on Twitter. “Of course health comes first, but to me it seems myopic to suggest that economic effects don’t matter.”