The president of the United States, Joe Biden, will receive his counterparts from Mexico and Canada next week in what represents the reactivation of a tripartite summit that had been abandoned by President Donald Trump.
As reported by the three governments, the November 18 summit at the White House with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is an opportunity to revitalize North American leadership and will be the first such meeting since 2016. .
Until that date, there were almost annual summits between North American leaders, but Trump, who had complicated relations with the leaders of both countries, did not organize such talks.
Biden held separate virtual meetings with Trudeau in February and with López Obrador in March. The Mexican leader also received Vice President Kamala Harris in Mexico City in June. According to his foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, López Obrador will hold bilateral meetings with Biden and Trudeau on the sidelines of the tripartite meeting.
The White House said the upcoming meeting will reaffirm the countries’ “strong ties and integration while charting a new path for collaboration” on issues such as the pandemic, climate change, immigration and economic growth.
Ebrard explained that the Mexican president would raise his concern about the unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and medical capacity in the global fight against the pandemic and would address the need to support development as a way to reduce migration.
“Where are we going? What do we have to do together? How do we achieve the objectives that are common to us?” asked the Mexican foreign minister. “We are on that route of having a common vision and acting together.”
For Trudeau, according to his office, the priorities are similar: “finish the fight against COVID-19 and vaccination, address the climate crisis, create new jobs for the middle class, make the economic recovery work for everyone, and migration.” .
The foreign minister avoided mentioning climate change, an issue on which Mexico has disagreements with the United States because Washington has expressed concern about the reform underway in the Mexican Congress that would limit competition in the energy sector.
Biden has tried to stabilize relations with both nations after Trump strained them. With Trudeau he discussed, among other things, commercial issues, and with López Obrador he maintained a tense understanding based on pressure and the threat of imposing tariffs on Mexican products if his government did not stop the flow of migrants to the north, something that the Mexican finally did.
In fact, despite coming from opposing political ideologies, Trump and López Obrador boasted of the good relationship they had and although the Mexican president had avoided traveling outside the country since he came to power, he went to visit Trump at the White House in July. of 2020, in the midst of a pandemic.
