Mexico. U.S. President Joe Biden spoke by phone with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Friday about a variety of issues, including how countries will coordinate to respond if Mexico’s public health immigration policy, known as Title 42, next month is cancelled.
“Most of the conversation has been about migration and continuing to work on coordination and economic coordination and taking action to reduce migration to the border,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told the White House press .
Psaki added that part of the call’s “follow-up” would include “ongoing high-level coordination and discussion” within the national security teams of both leaders.
Psaki also described the call as “constructive.” She said more detailed reading for reporters would come later.
After the leaders’ phone meeting, López Obrador described the conversation with Biden as “cordial” on his official Twitter account and hinted that Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard would visit Washington to “move forward on cooperation issues.” development and on the cover of the Americas».
For his part, Ebrard said on Twitter that the conversation focused on two issues: “Tackling the root causes of migration with much larger investments in Central America, and preparing for the America Summit, which all countries without exception must attend.”
Ahead of the leaders’ summit, which was closed to the press, a senior administration official told reporters he hoped to lean on his ties with Mexico to anticipate a possible influx of migrants beginning May 23 respond when public health policies are lifted.
“We really need to rely more than ever on our partnership to deliver a coordinated response, ramping up manpower and additional resources on both sides of our border to ensure we have an orderly and humane response,” the official said.
The official touted efforts to “rebuild” bilateral ties during the Biden administration after sometimes strained relations during the Trump era.
In response to further questions on the matter, the official said: “I will let you assess how the relationship was under the previous administration. What I want to say is that the cooperation mechanism with Mexico did not work during the previous government.”
And in areas where the two leaders disagree, notably on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials have tried to downplay differences.
“Mexico has previously reiterated its condemnation of the justified Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the official said, citing comments made by López Obrador at an event in April when he urged the international community to “do whatever it takes to end the conflict.” to end immediately”.
“We respect Mexico as a leader in the United Nations and of course we hope that they will join us in putting a price on the Kremlin for its brutal and unprovoked war against Ukraine by working with us to enforce the sanctions imposed by the United States, the United States and our partners,” the official continued. “I think we will inevitably have different approaches to the situation, but I think there is a common view that the violation of territory, a unilateral military invasion against the civilian population, is not justified.”
Source: CNN.