[dTal]

This may be an attempt to pander to US corn ethanol interests ahead of the election, in particular the swing state of Iowa which is a major corn ethanol producer and holds the first primary election. Note that it's not just a recommendation - the named products are now forbidden from import.

Circumstantial evidence:

* The very day before the import bans, Trump retweeted "President @realDonaldTrump is working to ensure that AMERICA produces the critical goods necessary to combat COVID-19 here" - along with a small speech about "restoring American manufacturing".

* The head of the FDA appears to be politically captured by the Trump administration, for example by ordering FEMA to distribute hydroxychloroquine to pharmacies nationwide.

* This administration has already attempted to pander to the Iowa ethanol demographic in the form of lobbying Brazil to lower ethanol import tariffs. Mexican ethanol is both cheaper and geographically nearer to Brazil, so discrediting its purity would make sense.

* Tiny methanol impurities, the cited reason for most of these recalls, pose virtually no contact risk in hand sanitizer. Even if you rubbed pure methanol on both your hands for a whole minute, you'd only absorb about 30 mg. That's about the same as you'd get from metabolizing a pint of diet soda (aspartame turns into 10% methanol by weight). Real hand sanitizer will contain tiny amounts of methanol, and will be in liquid form on the hands for considerably less than a minute. So I find the health justification for this rather suspect.