Goya Foods President and CEO Bob Unanue told Newsmax on Tuesday that East Palestine, Ohio, site of a train derailment that leaked toxic chemicals into the environment, might be a forgotten community to the Biden administration, but it's not that way with his company.
It is why the company announced Monday it is shipping ready-to-serve Goya food and beverages to the population of East Palestine and the surrounding area.
"There's only 4,700 people in East Palestine, but each one of them is important," Unanue told "John Bachman Now."
The derailment of the Norfolk Southern train carrying, among other things, toxic vinyl chloride happened Feb. 3, causing officials to do a controlled release and explosion of the chemical used to make plastics, sending an ominous black cloud into the air.
But it wasn't until Saturday when the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which among its duties is to lead the coordination of federal response efforts to stabilize communities after a disaster, sent a team to East Palestine after previously declining to do so.
"Hearing that these people were forgotten kind of upset me because they may be to some a community of deplorables, but to us, they're important," Unanue said. "The heartland of America is where we get up every day with a purpose: God, family, work.
"These people wake up every day with a purpose, and, unfortunately, they're forgotten. This administration has not given them their due."
Unanue said he is grateful former President Donald Trump will be visiting East Palestine on Wednesday, even before Biden administration officials such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or even President Joe Biden.
"[Trump] is a man and a leader who we are very blessed, I said this before [and] I got boycotted for, but very blessed to have a president who holds those values of God, family, work. You know, we were doing very well. We should not be in Ukraine now. We should not have all these issues. We have showed so much weakness around the world.
"If we are in good times, and we show weakness, there are hard times ahead. We have to work. We have to love, respect and build and bring this country back to the greatness that it once had."
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