The president of the United States, Joe Biden, and his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Jim Watson and Pedro Pardo (AFP)
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, and his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, are seeking a common response to the migration crisis that has increased pressure on the border.
The two leaders spoke by phone this Friday to try to define a common position with a view to the ninth Summit of the Americas to be held in June in Los Angeles.
The backdrop for the talk, requested by the White House, also covers security challenges, just as Mexico faces a new war between drug cartels, and energy policy.
Biden, unlike his predecessor Donald Trump, has parked the tactic of imposition and tries to address the binational agenda through negotiation.
Today his purpose was to "discuss priority North American initiatives for the region."
The conversation has been "cordial", as highlighted by the teams of the presidents.
"We discussed issues of interest in the bilateral relationship and we agreed that [Foreign Relations] Secretary Marcelo Ebrard will visit Washington on Monday to advance on development cooperation issues and the Summit of the Americas," López Obrador said.
"Most of the conversation was about migration and coordination work, economic coordination and taking steps to reduce migration along the border," White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The call, which has lasted 52 minutes, has occurred in a precise context.
In the first place, the debate around the so-called Title 42, a guideline applied by Trump in the midst of a pandemic that allows
hot return
of immigrants on the border with Mexico under pretexts of health security.
The Democratic Administration initially planned to withdraw it at the end of May.
That scenario, however, triggered a fight with the Republican governors and has become one of the central themes of the pre-campaign for the mid-term elections in November.
In the end, Biden was on Thursday in favor of maintaining the regulations if the justice so decides.
A first ruling by a federal court in Louisiana stopped the government's attempt to lift the measure for two weeks.
A new hearing is scheduled for May 13.
Second, López Obrador will visit the northern triangle of Central America next week, with stops in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize before diverting and flying to Cuba to meet with Miguel Díaz-Canel.
The trip is very relevant not only for the interests of Mexico, but also for Washington, since the situation of the southern border always anticipates tensions in the more than 3,000 kilometers that border Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
The two countries are already participating in joint cooperation programs in the region with the aim of mitigating the phenomenon, although they have differences over the method of direct investment in the migrants' territories of origin.
In 2021, all records of illegal crossings into the United States in recent decades were broken and the latest official data for this year indicates that around 7,000 people are detained by the Border Patrol every day.
With these premises and elections in which the Republicans threaten to seize Congress from the Democrats, Biden faces pressure not only from his political opponents but also from some sectors of his own party.
After Trump's excesses, his administration is still seeking to define a regulatory framework on migration and for this it needs the neighboring country.
On paper, the smooth relationship between Biden and López Obrador and their teams should make a deal easier.
But it is not that simple.
The two administrations are made up of broad coalitions with different agendas.
The worst moments in the recent border relationship were experienced at Easter, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Trump admirer, applied Title 42 to the letter and launched additional controls that unleashed chaos on four international bridges. .
The tensions, moreover, go beyond migration.
In recent months, the disagreements in energy matters have become clear in the wake of the debate on an electrical reform with which the Mexican Executive seeks to return majority control of the market to a state company, the Federal Electricity Commission.
And the future of the fight against drug trafficking also arouses concern in Washington after López Obrador announced the dissolution of a group of elite agents who worked for more than 25 years with the DEA, the United States Drug Control Administration. .
In other words, one thing is diplomatic courtesy and another is the routine of politics.
subscribe here
to the
newsletter
of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current affairs of this country