US Vice President Kamala Harris during the telematic meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador LEAH MILLIS / Reuters
The first high-flying meeting between the Administration of Joe Biden and the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has resulted in a staging of harmony and with the postponement of agreements on substantive issues until the personal meeting called for June 8 with Vice President Kamala Harris' trip to Mexico. During the first contact on Friday, by telematic means, both parties have influenced their willingness to collaborate in a joint plan to respond to the migration crisis that has triggered the largest number of illegal entries to the United States in 15 years.
Vice President Kamala Harris affirmed at the beginning of the meeting that the United States and Mexico must "fight violence and corruption together", scourges in the genesis of situations of misery that push thousands of undocumented migrants to the border shared by both countries . "Most of the people do not want to leave their homes and when they do it is because they are forced by something, because there are no opportunities in their country," he added.
Harris has assumed the mandate of President Joe Biden to deal with diplomatic relations with the so-called Northern Triangle —Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador— and with Mexico in relation to migratory pressure after four years of the Donald Trump Administration marked by rhetoric heavy-handed. The discourse has changed radically with the White House in Democratic hands, but Washington has also stressed the need to stop the irregular flow of arrivals.
López Obrador, for his part, used an old saying attributed to dictator Porfirio Díaz - "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States" - to illustrate the paradigm shift in bilateral relations after Trump's turbulent mandate. . “Now they are much better. We are going to continue to understand each other, we have many things in common and we agree with the policy that you are undertaking on immigration matters. We are going to help, they can count on us ”, he added.
In the same vein, Harris stressed this Friday the will of the United States to work "bilaterally" with Mexico and "multilaterally" together with the rest of the allies to try to solve the reasons for the origin of migration from Central America. A good part of the solutions have to do with hard and fast dollars. Washington has decided to promote a plan to invest up to 4,000 million in four years in the region, but warns that these are subject to the fight against corruption. In fact, the plan also includes direct contributions to NGOs in order to avoid diverting resources.
The Mexican proposal, on which López Obrador has influenced during the meeting, is the extension of some of its social programs in neighboring countries to the south. Specifically, Sowing life. For López Obrador, the planting of three million hectares in Central America would help stop migration to the United States, under the premise that it would create 1.3 million jobs in the region. A plan that involves the joint investment of both countries, as well as the other great Mexican commitment, the cooperation and development project announced in 2019 and sponsored by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The vice president criticized, last Tuesday, during her speech at the Conference of the Americas organized in Washington, the dismissal of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador and called to "respond."
"This weekend, we learned that the Salvadoran Parliament took measures that undermine the highest court," he said.
“An independent judicial system is crucial for a healthy democracy and a strong economy.
On this front, on all fronts, we must respond ”, he emphasized, without further details.
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