In Mexico since this Sunday (8), US President Joe Biden will meet this Monday (9) with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for a regional forum that will focus on the issues of migration, drugs and security.
The North American Leaders Summit —or Three Amigos Summit, as the forum is also known— also features Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and had its last edition in November 2021. This year’s edition takes place at Mexico City.
Together, the three leaders should also address climate change and economic integration by this Wednesday (11). The forum, it is hoped, will be guided by recent events in the region, which dialogue with the previously established agenda.
On Sunday, before landing in Mexico, Biden made his first visit to the US border with the neighboring country since the beginning of his term in 2021. Days earlier, the Democrat’s government had announced a new migration policy criticized by activists and experts on the subject.
The program detailed by the White House will allow the monthly entry of up to 30,000 Venezuelan, Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants for two years, but at the same time, it will reinforce expulsions to Mexico of those who illegally enter US territory.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who accompanies Biden on the trip, said that no new agreement will come out of the summit – the arrangement released last week, after all, was coordinated with the AMLO government, as the Mexican leader is also. known. However, “there’s no reason to believe there won’t be a third step at some point,” he added.
According to the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian group, without a robust plan to deal with the refugees, the new measures will only put asylum seekers in dangerous situations. The measure, however, was seen “with great sympathy” by the Mexican government, said the country’s chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard.
“There has to be a regular path, through which the person can go to work in the United States,” he said during a press conference this Monday morning. “For the first time, the US begins to speak and establish official documents on labor mobility.”
According to AMLO, there is convergence between the two countries on the matter. “We agree that we need to understand the causes of migration. People do not leave their cities because they want to, but out of necessity. It is necessary to guarantee opportunities for citizens and workers of all countries in their places of origin.”
The Mexican president, who accompanied Biden upon his arrival, cited investment programs in countries like Honduras and El Salvador to slow down migration.
Fentanyl trafficking should be another central theme during the summit. Last Thursday (5), Mexican drug trafficking leader Ovidio Guzmán, son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, arrested in the US, was detained by Mexican authorities in the state of Sinaloa, in northern Mexico. Washington requests his extradition, and the case is under analysis by the Mexican Justice.
A surge in overdose deaths in the US, fueled by the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has put greater pressure on Mexico to crack down on the organizations — like the Sinaloa Cartel — responsible for producing and transporting the drug.
The US is facing an opioid crisis that has claimed more than half a million lives over the past 20 years. “We’re going to openly tackle fentanyl,” AMLO said.
The Mexican said he did not deal with Biden about the invasion of the headquarters of the three powers by Bolsonarists in Brasilia last Sunday because the three leaders of the summit have already spoken. “We are going to continue supporting President Lula, who was democratically elected,” he said. “It is a consensus of the American countries.”
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