The president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradoris making an intense “working visit” to Cuba this Sunday, the backdrop of which is relations with the United States in the midst of a massive migratory wave.
“With this visit we want to express our solidarity, so that neither Cuba nor any people or nation are excluded,” said López Obrador, quoted in a tweet from the Cuban presidency.
AMLO has insisted on the need for all the countries of the hemisphere to participate in the Summit of the Americas to be held in June, in Los Angeles, of which they have been excluding Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
“Let no one exclude anyone; we are independent countries and sovereigns,” López Obrador emphasized. “We are not in favor of hegemony of any kind,” he assured.
Upon his arrival in Havana on Saturday night, AMLO inquired about the victims of the explosion that occurred on Friday at the Hotel Saratoga in Havana, which left at least 30 dead.
Cuba, where he will be until Sunday night, is the final stage of a tour on the migratory issue that took him to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize.
tightening ties
López Obrador arrives for his first visit to Cuba when both countries celebrate 120 years of diplomatic relations this month.
Mexico was the only Latin American country that did not join the isolation of Fidel Castro’s government in the 1960s, which included the separation of Havana from the OASand maintained its relations and trade with the island.
AMLO was received this Sunday by Diaz-Canel with military honors at the Palace of the Revolution, in a ceremony without speeches or words of welcome. Then both held official talks and signed cooperation agreements on health.
On Twitter, the Cuban president stressed on Saturday that “his visit will strengthen the bonds of friendship” between the two countries, “which are already endearing because they overcome time and challenges to settle in the soul” of both peoples.
López Obrador was also decorated with the order Jose Marti (national hero), for his contribution “to the development and consolidation” of bilateral relations, a gesture that the Mexican thanked his “friend” Díaz-Canel.
A brief meeting between AMLO and the Cuban troubadour Silvio Rodríguez is not ruled out, according to sources close to the delegation.
Migration
During his tour, the Mexican president asked Washington to become more involved in solving the economic problems that generate disorderly emigration to the United States and promoted his “Sembrando Vidas” job promotion program.
“We are insisting a lot that there be investment in North America, to integrate well in North America. This is going to require ordering the migratory flow,” he said before embarking on his tour.
From October 2021 to March 2022, more than 78,000 Cubans entered US territory along the border with Mexico, according to the United States Customs office, which incorporates Cuba into the migratory problem between the two northern countries.
Havana has current migration agreements with Washington, which have been paralyzed since 2017.
Under those agreements, the United States must issue 20,000 permanent emigration visas to Cubans annually and return illegal migrants intercepted on the high seas.
And Cuba must prevent illegal emigration by persuasive methods and reintegrate those returned without legal consequences.
Pivot
“I think AMLO comes with a plan to reaffirm his integrationist policy, without exclusions, and solidarity with Cuba,” Cuban academic and former diplomat Jesús Arboleya told AFP.
“Rather, the proposals would be addressed to the United States, perhaps as an intermediary of good will, but I don’t think there will be any surprise in content, the issue would be to comply with the agreements,” he added.
Mexico acted as an intermediary or facilitator between Cuba and the United States at moments of maximum tension in 1981, when José López Portillo and his Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda hosted a secret meeting between Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodríguez.
Also Mexican President Carlos Salinas was an intermediary between Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro in the rafters’ crisis of 1994.
In both cases they were the first steps towards migratory agreements.
“Mexico under the presidency of López Obrador has returned somewhat to the status of pivot in a triangular relationshipArturo López-Levy, from California’s Holy Names University, told AFP.
It is a “silent diplomacy that cautiously advances possibilities of a détente that ultimately will depend on the specific will of Havana and Washington.”