Mexico promises a "very good relationship" with the Biden Administration amid tensions

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not hesitate to travel to Washington DC to meet with Donald Trump in the midst of a pandemic, but said he should be cautious when it took him more than a month to recognize Joe Biden's victory.

Later, López Obrador tried to offer asylum to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks who is accused of espionage in the United States, and ended with accusations for which he has not given evidence that the Department of Justice and the US anti-drug agency (DEA, for his acronym in English) allegedly "fabricated" a criminal complaint against a Mexican general accused of having ties to drug traffickers.

The Mexican prosecutor's office chose to exonerate that general, Salvador Cienfuegos, and, in response, the United States authorities issued statements calling their Mexican counterparts "disappointed."

The governments of Mexico and the United States have had disagreements in the past, but rarely has there been such a public exchange of words.

Thus, an unlikely scenario was foreseen to establish a good relationship with a new US Administration.

However, this Wednesday with the recently inaugurated Government of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Mexican authorities sought to ensure that

the relationship will be good and purposeful

, according to the Secretary of Foreign Relations, Marcelo Ebrard.

[In Mexico many die at home due to the saturation of the hospitals]

Mexico and the United States share a border of more than 3,100 kilometers (almost 2,000 miles), through which there are very close and important links in terms of security, economic and commercial, cultural and, of course, immigration.

López Obrador highlighted on Wednesday that in the plans to attend the pandemic, to reactivate the economy 

and in the immigration aspect there seem to be coincidences to collaborate. 

Biden has a plan for undocumented people, many of Mexican descent, to access citizenship in the future and will seek to address the causes that promote emigration from Central America in a possible joint agreement with Mexico.

However, on other issues there are

foundations for possible bilateral disputes.

An independent panel determined late last year that Mexico is not fully complying with the T-MEC or USMCA trade agreement, which analysts say could unleash a "stream of lawsuits."

The Biden Administration has indicated that it will give priority to issues of combating climate change and promoting clean energy;

López Obrador has bet on oil and has even opined that renewable energies are a "sophistry" (deception) of "neoliberal" politicians.

While cooperation for cross-border security is uncertain due to López Obrador's criticism of a part of the agents who carry them out.

After Cienfuegos was detained, the Mexican Congress - where the president's party has a majority - approved a reform that restricts the actions of agents of the FBI, DEA or other foreign government agencies.

And it is that for López Obrador, nicknamed AMLO, the important thing for the bilateral relationship is that there is not what

he assumes as "interference" or "none" from Washington.

This alleged "interference" would include issues such as the demands that the requirements of the T-MEC be well met or that there be a police cooperation approach.

It is for that reason that the Mexican president still opined on Wednesday morning that he considers that Donald Trump fostered a relationship with "few disagreements", because AMLO implied that it seemed to him that Trump did not impose decisions on him.

That, despite the comments that Trump made on several occasions accusing Mexicans of being alleged rapists and "

bad men

", who led Mexican authorities to negotiate a new trade agreement after Trump unilaterally abandoned NAFTA or NAFTA, or that the now former US president forced Mexico, with the threat of imposing tariffs, to adopt the immigration policy that the White House wanted.

[Mexico redoubles its commitment to the war on drugs after pressure from Trump]

As an example of why he believes the relationship with Trump was favorable, this Wednesday AMLO said that Trump did not "send agents" to Mexican territory after a binational Mormon family was massacred at the end of 2019 or after the Mexican armed forces arrested and they will immediately let one of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's sons go.

At that time, Trump even said that it was time to "make war" and that he would want to classify Mexican drug trafficking groups as terrorist groups.

He did not, and for AMLO that was cause to celebrate, as he said this Wednesday.

"There was respect," López Obrador declared, in an apparent message to the new US government about what he regards as respect and what he expects from Biden.

"We need to have a very good relationship," he said, "and I have no doubt that this is going to be the case." But "with respect to our sovereignty," he added, stating that "we have to seek orderly, respectful cooperation and that there is no interference from any government."