Andrés Manuel López Obrador took advantage of the first stop on his tour of Central America to ask for more collaboration from the US government in its response plans to the migratory phenomenon.
From Guatemala City, the Mexican president emphasized this Thursday that "it is essential that the United States provide the necessary resources" to start the social programs that, in the case of Guatemala, are already in place and only the last financial push is missing.
This was recognized by the Guatemalan president, Alejandro Giammattei, in a joint press conference from the National Palace in the capital of the Central American country.
There are exactly 22 development programs defined for Guatemala under the auspices of ECLAC, the economic organization for Latin America of the UN.
"We hope to be able to finalize them in the coming months," said Giammattei.
ECLAC presented last year a Marshall Plan for Central America, a roadmap with specific projects and funding forecasts.
The plan is Mexico's great asset in its commitment to cooperation and development in the countries of origin as a response to the causes of migration.
At the moment, the plan remains stalled while waiting to resolve the differences on the methods and investment amounts.
That is the touchstone in Mexico's negotiations with the United States, which have accelerated in recent weeks amid growing migratory pressure on the border.
Despite the recent harmony shown between the parties, Washington currently maintains a double agenda.
On the one hand, it demands more police control from Mexico on its borders, and on the other, it negotiates the terms and amounts of the financing.
Last December, it already released a first battery of investments managed directly with the Central American governments.
One of the underlying differences focuses on the US requirement to subordinate its economic aid to the performance of the recipients.
Specifically, the Capitol has been pending for almost four years to resolve the departure of 4,000 million dollars for Central America as part of the joint plans with Mexico.
López Obrador had an impact, as he has done on other occasions, in this specific case: "It seems inexplicable to me that Washington has been so late with the approval of the 4,000 million dollars that they offer to invest in Central America."
The Mexican president acknowledged that it is a recurring issue in his meetings with both the president, Joe Biden, and the vice president, Kamala Harris.
"Only with international collaboration can we put an end to the painful phenomenon of migration."
The first appointment of López Obrador's tour, which will continue through El Salvador, Honduras and Belize to end in Cuba on Sunday, also served to advance two other projects already announced of direct collaboration between Mexico and Guatemala aimed at increasing job opportunities. .
The plan, for which no amount of financing has been given, involves replicating Mexican social programs.
On the one hand, the so-called Sembrando Vida, for which official forecasts estimate a generation of 1.2 million jobs through the planting of 3,000 million trees in Central America.
And on the other hand, Youth Building the Future, a scholarship program in companies.
"This is the same proposal for our brothers in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador," stressed López Obrador, who also spoke of "the common root of the problems here and in Mexico."
The Mexican president deployed his social discourse to justify the cooperation plans aimed at intervening in the causes of migration.
“Poverty, inequality and the prostration of the countryside, the marginalization of the great majorities in our societies.
These are the causes of migration and also of delinquency, addictions and violence.
The other side is justice and the provision of well-being for our societies.
Only then will migration be a choice and not a necessity.”
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