MEXICO CITY (AA) – Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador met on Monday when the two leaders challenged US President Joe Biden to end his stance of “abandoning” and “contempt” Latin America and the Caribbean. North American leaders’ summit.
The comments were in stark contrast to López Obrador and Biden’s display of affection recently as they smiled, hugged and shook hands for the cameras. But it didn’t take long for tensions to surface after the two of them sat down with delegations of high-ranking officials in an ostentatious room at the Palacio Nacional.
Much of the summit work will be discussed on Tuesday, when the two leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will hold hours of talks. Both legal and illegal immigration and border security will be key issues.
On Monday, López Obrador challenged Biden to improve life in the region, saying he “holds the key”.
“The time has come for Latin America and the Caribbean to decide to remove this abandonment, this disdain and this forgetfulness,” he said.
He also complained that too much was imported from Asia instead of being produced in America.
“We ask ourselves, can’t we produce what we consume in America?” said. “Of course.”
Biden responded by arguing for the billions of dollars the US spends on foreign aid around the world and said, “Unfortunately, our responsibility does not end in the Western Hemisphere.” And he referred to deaths in the US from fentanyl, a drug that crosses the Mexican border.
Although both men had promised to work together, this was a full-fledged, remarkably sharp exchange in front of reporters. Trudeau and his wives met privately for about an hour before dinner.
The meeting is held most years, although there was a hiatus when Donald Trump was president of the United States. Often referred to as the “three cheerleading summits” in reference to the deep diplomatic and economic ties between countries, new tensions have emerged.
All three countries are struggling to cope with the influx of people into North America and to suppress smugglers who profit from persuading immigrants to make the dangerous trip to the United States.
Canada and the United States also accuse López Obrador of violating the free trade agreement by favoring Mexico’s state-owned utility over power plants built by foreign and private investors. Meanwhile, Trudeau and López Obrador are fretting over Biden’s efforts to boost domestic production, raising concerns that their US neighbors may be lagging behind.
Biden and López Obrador have not been on good terms for the past two years either. The Mexican leader did not hide his admiration for Trump and last year Los Angeles skipped the summit because Biden did not invite the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
However, attempts were made to dissolve the relationship. Biden made flying a point new Felipe Angeles International Airportan award-winning project by the Mexican president, despite being a source of controversy.
The airport, which is expected to cost 4.1 billion dollars when finished, is more than an hour north of the city center, with very few flights and until recently there was no permanent drinking water. However, it’s one of the key projects López Obrador is racing to finish before his term expires next year, along with an oil refinery, a tourist train on the Yucatan Peninsula, and a train connecting Gulf coast and Pacific ports.
The two leaders drove to Mexico City in Biden’s limousine. López Obrador was fascinated by the presidential car known as the “monster” and said Biden “showed me how buttons work”.
In a rather warm comment, the Mexican president described the two leaders’ first encounter on the trip as “very nice” and said “President Biden is a friendly person”.
The USA and Mexico also agreed on this issue. and a major change in immigration policyBiden announced last week.
Under the plan, the United States will repatriate 30,000 immigrants each month across the border from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela, among those who entered the United States illegally. Immigrants from these four countries cannot easily return to their countries for various reasons.
In addition, 30,000 people per month from these four countries who gets a sponsorbackground checks and an airline flight to the USA will get you the ability to legally work in the country for two years.
On Monday, before the summit begins, López Obrador said he would consider accepting more immigrants than previously announced.
“We don’t want to predict things, but that’s part of what we’re going to talk about at the summit,” López Obrador said. said. “We support such measures to give people options, alternatives,” he said, adding that “the numbers may increase.”
Mexico will likely require an increase in the number of US work permit holders to repatriate more deported immigrants.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that nothing has yet been decided.
What we need is to see how the program announced last week works in practice, what happens if any adjustments need to be made in that program, and then we can talk about the next steps.”
Biden stopped for four hours in El Paso, Texas on his way to Mexico — first time as president and longest time spent on the US-Mexico route. The visit was highly controlled and seemed designed to counter Republican claims of a state of crisis by running a smooth operation to process immigrants entering legally, weed out smuggling, and humanely treat those who entered illegally.
But the trip probably wouldn’t do much to quell critics from both sides, including immigration advocates, who accused the Democratic president of creating cruel policies not unlike those of his staunch predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.
In Biden’s first two years in office, the number of immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border increased significantly. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year ending September 1. 30, for the first time the number exceeded 2 million.
On Monday afternoon, López Obrador formally welcomed Biden at the Palacio Nacional for the first time since 2014, when Mexico hosted a US president.
As a show of solidarity, the First Ladies of the United States and Mexico alternated between Jill Biden in English and Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller in Spanish.
“We believe that the fate of poverty is the product of inequality, not God,” said Jill Biden. “We know that the poor deserve a better life, and we work with compassion every day to improve everyone’s lives.”
Earlier in the day, Jill Biden met with women from the education, arts and business fields, many of whom have received US co-op programs or fellowships.
“Do whatever you want, but teach others,” he said.
Biden’s first visit to Mexico as president is expected to follow with another visit to Canada, although this is not yet planned.
A senior Canadian official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Canada is working with the Americans for a visit in the near future.
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Associated Press writers Andres Leighton of El Paso, Texas; Anita Snow in Phoenix; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Mark Stevenson and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City; Rob Gillies of Toronto and Chris Megerian and Josh Boak of Washington contributed to this report.
