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López Obrador receives Biden and Trudeau at a summit marked by the immigration crisis and the war on drug trafficking

2023-01-09T05:01:02.517Z


The three leaders meet in Mexico for the first time in almost a decade for the tenth edition of the North American Leaders Summit. It is the first visit of the US president to Latin America


Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau at the last edition of the North American Leaders Summit in Washington, in November 2021.MANDEL NGAN (AFP)

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau meet again.

The President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada travel to Mexico for the start of the North American Leaders Summit on Monday.

The meeting marks the first visit to the Latin American country by a White House tenant since 2014 and the first time that Biden has visited a Latin American country during his tenure.

The three presidents cross paths when the debate on the migration crisis is red hot and four days after the arrest of drug trafficker Ovidio Guzmán, the son of El Chapo, who set fire and sowed chaos in Culiacán, the capital of the State of Sinaloa.

Much will be said about migration and the war against drug trafficking in the tenth edition of the meeting,

Biden will land this Sunday at the Felipe Ángeles International Airport after making a tour of the border with Mexico for the first time during his presidency, the epicenter of Republican criticism of his Administration and the limbo for tens of thousands of immigrants who have waited for months, even years, until the United States reopens its doors after the pandemic.

The president will be received by his Mexican counterpart and will lead a delegation that includes Antony Blinken, Secretary of State;

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Security;

Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce;

Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser;

Chris Dodd, special advisor to the president for the Americas;

Ken Salazar, US ambassador to Mexico;

David Cohen, US representative in Canada, and Juan González,

Trudeau is scheduled to arrive around 2:40 p.m. (local time) on Monday.

After the landing of the Canadian president, Biden will be received at the National Palace, the seat of the Mexican Government, for a closed-door meeting scheduled at half past four in the afternoon.

Thirty minutes later, the summit begins with a bilateral meeting between Washington and Mexico.

Biden brings a portfolio to the three North American leaders that includes issues such as climate change, global supply chains and immigration.

It will be a conversation between both governments lasting an hour and a half.

The fight against trafficking in fentanyl, a drug that has claimed the lives of more than 70,000 Americans in 2022, will be one of Biden's priorities.

Every day an average of almost 200 people die from an overdose of this drug manufactured in Mexico with precursors from all over the world -and especially from China- and transported to the United States.

The Government of López Obrador knows that it will have to discuss migration and security, but it will seek to put on the table greater economic integration, concessions for regular emigration and overcome old differences on the political scene on the continent.

The bilateral meeting comes just days after the White House announced an agreement with Mexico to increase control of its southern border in exchange for offering new avenues of legal immigration for citizens of Haiti,

Biden's decision to link his visit to the border with the trip to Mexico is not minor.

“I know very well that migration is raising the tension in border communities,” the president commented from the White House on Thursday.

The agreement announced this week expands a program in place since last year that allows people based in the United States to sponsor Venezuelan citizens to enter the country if they can demonstrate that they have the means or local support necessary to survive.

This program, which has made it possible to reduce by 94% the irregular crossings of Venezuelans in the territory of the first power, will also be extended to nationals of Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Up to 30,000 citizens of those countries each month will be able to receive authorization to enter and work for two years.

But "if the request is denied or they try to cross illegally, they will be returned to Mexico and will not be eligible for this program in the future," Biden has assured.

Mexico has accepted the return of up to 30,000 people a month from these four countries.

But not everything will remain on the symbolic level.

As explained at a press conference at the White House by the spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, the leaders' talks will prioritize the fight against the supply of fentanyl and the opioid crisis.

Mexico, Kirby stressed, has taken some "significant steps" in the fight against this scourge.

He specifically alluded to the capture this week of Ovidio Guzmán, arrested on Thursday in an operation resulting from six months of work and in which members of the Army, the National Guard and other Mexican security entities participated.

The fall of El Chapo's son, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison, has catapulted the issue of security in Mexican territory,

although authorities have insisted that Washington did not directly assist in the arrest.

“It is not an insignificant achievement of the Mexican authorities,” Kirby stressed.

“We have to continue to collaborate with them in a synchronized way,” he added.

Still, Washington expects more results in fighting crime and working on new public health strategies for prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery.

In a game of carrots and sticks, the White House promises progress in terms of labor mobility and a greater economic alliance in the region to compete as a single trading bloc.

Economic cooperation cuts across the issue of climate change, with efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, the future of minerals such as lithium and the expansion of regional supply chains for semiconductors.

The environmental issue is one of the issues that has provoked the most criticism against the López Obrador Administration.

Trudeau will join the program and there will be a formal greeting planned for half past six in the afternoon.

The bilateral meeting between the United States and Canada is scheduled for Tuesday morning.

After noon the trilateral summit will be held.

Around half past three in the afternoon there will be a message to the media from the three leaders.

A joint declaration is expected on the summit and the closing of various agreements between the three countries in six areas: diversity;

equity and inclusion;

environment and climate change;

competitiveness with the rest of the world;

migration and development;

Health and security.

Announcements on bilateral issues are also outlined.

Biden will fly back to the US that same afternoon.

Trudeau and López Obrador will meet again on Wednesday morning.

The diplomatic marathon closes with the signing of a memorandum of understanding to recognize the legacy of the original peoples, one of the greatest coincidences between both governments.

“We are going to strengthen ourselves as a region,” said López Obrador in the last edition of the summit, in November 2021, in Washington.

Faced with a world that has changed substantially since then, the three members of a geographic couple will have three days, in a carefully planned diary, to catch up.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-09

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