They call it the Three Friends Summit, but when Andrés Manuel López Obrador meets at the White House this Thursday with his peers Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau, trade and immigration tensions could spoil the party.
AMLO, as the Mexican president is known by his acronym, will hold a three-way meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and US President Biden at the North American Leaders Summit, the first since 2016.
Biden has resurrected the summit buried by Donald Trump. As it has been doing with its European and Asian allies, it wants to improve relations between the three great countries of North America, which form the Treaty of Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC).
It is “the culmination of 10 months of work to revitalize North America as a platform that is critical to our national economic success, as well as a partnership that can play an essential role in solving regional and global challenges,” stated the deputy press secretary of the White House, Chris Meagher.
Mexico arrives with “an optimistic vision” because the environment is “positive,” Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said in Washington on Wednesday.
But not everything is pink.
Made in the US
Echoing Trump’s “America First” ideology, Biden is trying to revitalize America’s shaky industrial base, most notably by boosting the clean energy and electric vehicle market. And this creates friction.
Both Mexico and Canada They are alarmed by Biden’s proposal for tax credits to promote US manufacturing of electric vehicles.
And Canada and the United States disapprove of AMLO’s constitutional reform for the electricity sector, due to its potential impact on private investments.
“Buy American,” Biden’s policy to encourage the purchase of American products, annoys his neighbors. Canada labels it as overt protectionism.
Meagher says however that “there will be plenty of opportunities” to work with Canada and Mexico on regional economic growth.
For the Mexican president, the economy and problems in the supply chain, a puzzle at the regional level, are one of the axes of his visit, along with the production of Covid-19 vaccines.
His chancellor affirmed that the summit will deal with the “development of southern Mexico and Central America, as a response to migratory phenomena.”
Because the migration is another headache.
Trump made the fight against illegal immigration his campaign theme and Biden takes a more humane approach.
A senior Biden administration official told reporters that regional solutions will be discussed at Thursday’s trialogue meeting.
Faced with an “unprecedented displacement”, fueled by the economic consequences of Covid-19 and climate change, USA wants to “reach a common approach” and find solutions to the “root causes” of the migratory phenomenon, he said.
And for Mexico, finding solutions involves development aid.
The “Stay in Mexico” program, which forces migrants seeking asylum to wait in this country for the resolution of their cases, is not on the agenda, but it is not ruled out.
Before the summit between the three, the Mexican president met with Trudeau at the Mexican Cultural Institute.
“We are peoples and sister nations,” she told the Canadian prime minister, who said they would talk about “all common issues, such as indigenous peoples, women’s leadership and the fact that we are great allies.”
The meeting began and ended with a handshake. Before the meeting, AMLO He went out to the balcony to greet a group of supporters, including mariachis, as he posted on his social networks.
The Mexican president will also meet separately with Biden.
Leaders this Thursday will shy away from sensitive issues. They are not expected to discuss the situation in Cuba, an issue that Mexico is highly critical of because it considers the US embargo on the island to be “inhumane.”
The three leaders will not give a press conference at the end of the day, but will issue a joint statement because, according to the Mexican foreign minister, it is “more precise.”
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx