President Joe Biden meets this Thursday with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Justin Trudeau, at the summit of the "three friends" for the first time in five years, suspended since 2016 by former President Donald Trump.
The president will seek to strengthen the alliance with his North American neighbors, they will debate a regional migration strategy and increase coordination in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate emergency.
The three allies have profound differences in immigration, climate and trade.
[Biden signs the infrastructure bill after an uphill legislative battle]
“There is not much in common between them, at least in their vision of what they want for their countries.
Not only in what they want for their countries, but in what they can offer their countries, "Kenneth Frankel, president of the Canadian Council for the Americas, told The Associated Press news agency.
Thursday's meetings at the White House will be the first in which the three North American nations will be present since June 2016 in Ottawa between Trudeau, then-US President Barack Obama and Mexican Enrique Peña Nieto.
The summits were suspended during the presidency of Trump, who clashed with both the Canadian leader and Peña Nieto.
Biden has made some progress to regain America's relationship with its neighbors after his predecessor's turbulent stint in the White House.
But many of the more important divisions remain, and new ones have emerged.
Trudeau arrived in Washington concerned about the US purchase provisions in Biden's proposed $ 1.85 million social services plan.
Mexico's priorities before the summit were to make concrete progress on immigration and achieve equitable access to vaccines against COVID-19.
The three leaders will also address the situation in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, although they did not specify details about which requests or specific issues they will discuss about these countries, which are experiencing different crises.
Biden will meet separately first with Trudeau and then with López Obrador, and then they will all hold a trilateral meeting in the afternoon, according to the White House.
[Roads, internet, trains: this is what the infrastructure plan that Biden signs today contains]
López Obrador goes to Washington with his controversial electricity reform proposal to limit the participation of private companies, both national and foreign, in the sector and thus strengthen the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), even prioritizing the use of fossil fuels.
Immigrants ask AMLO in Washington DC to advocate for immigration reform
Nov. 17, 202101: 55
The Democratic president will speak to his Mexican counterpart about the energy reform proposal in the Latin American country, but not about one of the main bilateral migration issues, the Remain in Mexico program, as reported by the EFE news agency, citing high-ranking officials of the Biden Administration who disclosed the information in a telephone press conference.
[President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping ease tensions at their first summit]
Through this immigration program, launched by the government of former President Donald Trump, the United States returned migrants who arrived at its southern border to Mexico until their asylum cases were resolved.
Upon his arrival to the Presidency last January, Biden put an end to the MPP, but the states of Texas and Missouri sued the federal government to resume the program and in August the Supreme Court refused to block the decision of a lower court that he asked for it to be reactivated.
In a judicial brief filed this week in a Texas court, the Department of Justice indicated that this measure could be resumed "in the coming weeks" and that the
Trudeau and Biden are also expected to discuss the future of a pipeline that runs through part of the Great Lakes and which is the subject of mounting tension over whether it should be closed.
Biden is embroiled in a battle over Enbridge Line 5, a key segment of a pipeline network that carries Canadian oil through the American Midwest.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat and Biden ally, has demanded the closure of the 68-year-old line over the possibility of a catastrophic rupture over a 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) stretch of the Strait of Mackinac, which connects Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.
The Biden government has not spoken out, but is under increasing pressure to do so.
[Roads, internet, trains: this is what the infrastructure plan that Biden signs today contains]
Canada last month invoked a 1977 treaty that guarantees the unimpeded transit of oil between the two nations.
With information from EFE.
