Mexico and the United States used the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) to discuss migration and fentanyl, two topics that have become imperative in bilateral relations. Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Joe Biden met this Friday in San Francisco on the sidelines of the international summit to make a final funding cut before 2024, an election year on both sides of the border. Despite ongoing challenges behind the scenes and some recent disagreements, both leaders held a cordial dialogue in front of the media and exchanged praise. “I thank you for the cooperation and leadership you have shown in the face of this challenge, Mr. President,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “I couldn’t have a better partner and ally than you,” he added. “We are closer than ever before,” replied his Mexican counterpart. “Our relationship is excellent.”
The immigration crisis has been the main topic of the meeting since the beginning of this week. In fact, it was the only agenda item specifically mentioned in the previous White House statement on Monday. Migration, which has broken records over the past 12 months, has become the Biden administration’s Achilles heel and the Republican Party’s main source of criticism ahead of next year’s elections. Eliminating this front was one of the United States’ priorities at the last APEC summit.
“The issue that concerns them is migration, and in this the solution of the Venezuelan question is fundamental,” said Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, who met with the US president on Thursday afternoon as part of the forum. Petro, in line with López Obrador, proposes to redirect the migratory flow that goes to the Darién jungle towards Venezuela. The prerequisite for this is that Washington relaxes the sanctions imposed against the Nicolás Maduro regime. This year, for the first time in history, Venezuelans surpassed Mexicans in illegal border crossings.
To meet Washington’s demand to do more to curb the migration phenomenon, the López Obrador administration has insisted that the United States must invest more in development cooperation programs in sending countries and take measures to address the causes. structural aspects of migration, beyond the search for short-term, containment-oriented solutions. “We must help each other so that migration becomes optional and not forced,” stressed López Obrador.
The extension of the border fence by just over 30 kilometers, announced during a visit by a delegation of senior officials to Mexico City last month, was met with little approval by Mexican authorities. Mexico responded with a summit in Palenque (Chiapas) with ten other Latin American countries at the end of October on the issue of migration, which led to a critical stance on the US sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela as the trigger for the migration crisis.
The Mexican president appears to have overcome recent controversies. “He is the first president of the United States in a long time who does not build walls, because that is not a solution,” López Obrador said of Biden, a recurring compliment on the four occasions they met. The Mexican also recognized Biden as “the only US president in recent history to open a legal path for migration” and highlighted the presence of tens of millions of people of Mexican origin in the United States, although the official statements did not mention the usual went out.
Biden and López Obrador faced each other for about an hour at the Moscone Center before the final working meeting of the summit, in which the American president must hand over the presidency of APEC to Peru’s Dina Boluarte. The previous evening, the Mexican president attended an official dinner hosted by his American counterpart at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. On this occasion, issues of cooperation in national security and, above all, border control were the focus of the exchange. They also took time to talk about trade relations, one of the strongest ties between both countries. “We are the most important trading partner of the American Union, something extraordinary,” celebrated López Obrador.
Both leaders came to the meeting after holding separate meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. After a “candid” meeting that highlighted differences, the United States and China agreed to step up cooperation in the fight against trafficking in chemical precursors, which are crucial to the synthetic drug trade chain from Asia to North America. Mexico, which is considered only a transit area, followed the lines of this agreement and called on Beijing to increase information sharing in the joint fight against drug trafficking and support in the control of substances used to produce fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.
“With regard to the fight against drugs, Mexico remains committed to not allowing the importation of chemicals. We are very aware of the damage this is causing in the United States,” López Obrador said. “It is an act of solidarity.” The emphasis on national security on the agenda was reflected in the delegations accompanying the heads of state and government. The Mexican president appeared with five members of his cabinet: Rosa Icela Rodríguez (Security), Luis Cresencio Sandoval (Defense), Rafael Ojeda (Navy), Alicia Bárcena (Foreign Affairs) and Raquel Buenrostro (Economy). Several old acquaintances of Mexico stood out in Biden’s delegation, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Ambassador Ken Salazar; Special Assistant to the President Juan González and Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. The president’s return to Mexican territory is scheduled for this afternoon, with a flight scheduled a few hours after meeting Biden.
Subscribe here Subscribe to the EL PAÍS México newsletter and receive all the important information on current events in this country