The “Three Amigos” summit began Monday with a small friendly row between two of the allies — after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador complained of “contempt” for the region during his first meeting with Biden, prompting Biden to to defend the US commitments worldwide.
President Joe Biden got down to business in Mexico City with a bilateral meeting with his Mexican counterpart and pledged to address the steady flow of fentanyl flowing across the border and migratory challenges, prompting a new policy release last week. He called the synthetic opioid a “scourge.”
He said tackling what he called “irregular migration” is something “we are well on our way to doing”.
That comes after Lopez Obrador signaled his country could take in more than 30,000 migrants being sent back from the US each month under Biden’s new policy.
But the host appeared to challenge Biden in his own Spanish-language remarks as he touted JFK’s multi-billion dollar Alliance for Progress aid program at the height of the Cold War and then complained about global inequality.
President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador received a warm welcome during an official welcoming ceremony at the start of the Three Amigos Summit. The Mexican President then complained about “contempt” for Latin America
Leftist Lopez Obrador, according to comments simultaneously translated into English, called it the “single important thing done in terms of cooperation… on our continent in more than half a century.”
He said this is the moment “to remove this abandonment, this contempt and this forgetfulness for Latin America”.
This prompted a verbal backlash from Biden, who spoke second, with two delegations seated at a long table with white flower arrangements.
“The United States is providing more aid than any other country, almost anywhere in the world, not just in the hemisphere, but in the entire world,” he said.
Lopez Obrador said through a translator that this is the moment “to remove this abandonment, this contempt and this forgetfulness for Latin America”.
“Unfortunately, our responsibility doesn’t end in the western hemisphere,” Biden shot back
“Unfortunately, our responsibility does not end in the western hemisphere. It is in Central Europe. It is Asia, Middle East and Africa and Southeast Asia. I wish we could have just one focus, just one focus. We have several priorities,” he said days after signing a bill to provide $47 billion in aid to Ukraine.
“In the last 15 years alone, we’ve spent billions of dollars in the hemisphere — tens of billions of dollars in the hemisphere,” Biden replied.
Lopez Obrador also complained about Asian imports flooding his country – echoing US concerns about imports from China. Not long ago, it was a spate of imports built by cheaper Mexican labor that fueled US trade discussions
“They come from Asia,” Lopez Obrador said of the goods that end up in stores.
“Couldn’t we produce in America what we consume? That’s what we ask. Of course we could,’ he said.
Biden spoke of fighting the “scourge” of illegal fentanyl
The White House has also said that improving supply chains and manufacturing critical items by friendly neighboring countries are a topic of discussion for the summit.
The US requested $2 billion in foreign aid for Latin America and the Caribbean for fiscal 2022, which would have been the largest allocation in a decade.
The US has long led the list of donors of foreign aid in dollars – but lags behind other developed nations in terms of the size of its own economy.
Mexico’s economy, which is closely linked to exports to the US, has suffered during the pandemic and economic slowdown, even as Lopez Obrador worked to raise wages here. The country is experiencing slow growth.
According to a reading of the White House meeting, the two men reviewed progress towards meeting their ambitious climate commitments, including meeting emissions targets set in their Nationally Determined Contributions and meeting targets Mexico announced at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt announced in November.’
They “reaffirmed their commitment to implementing innovative approaches to countering irregular migration,” and Biden “discussed the recent announcement of additional enforcement measures coupled with expanded pathways for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to counter irregular migration. President Biden and President López Obrador also reaffirmed their commitment to addressing the root causes of migration.”
The two leaders spoke at the head of a meeting on Monday after the White House indicated a plan to take in 30,000 additional legal migrants each month was not a “fixed number”. That came after the Mexican president signaled his country could be ready to take in more frontier workers than previously announced, who the US plans to send back.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to reporters Monday after the Biden administration announced a plan to take in 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti who are seeking asylum online.
“We’re still in the early stages of implementation and will see how that goes and then decide where to take the next step. So I don’t think we have a fixed number in mind,” Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters from the president’s luxury hotel in Mexico City hours after Biden landed here.
He was asked about Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s own statement that Mexico might take in more than 30,000 migrants from the US than previously indicated.
President Joe Biden met Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Monday night. The two men shared a one-hour drive into town
“We don’t want to prejudge anything, but that’s part of what we’re going to talk about at the summit,” said López Obrador. “We support this type of action to give people options and alternatives,” he continued, adding that “the number could be increased.”
For his part, Sullivan said the numbers released by the White House last week were an “iterative process.”
The concept sees the US encouraging people from the countries to apply for asylum online, while those who show up at the southern border would be turned back.
Lopez Obrador said he was willing to take in more than 30,000 migrants a month to be sent back from north of the border.
Migrants stand behind barbed wire to prevent them from entering El Paso, Texas, as seen Tuesday from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The White House wants people to apply for asylum online
The US plans to send about 30,000 migrants back to Mexico each month, according to a plan announced before Biden’s trip
Long road: Biden and the Mexican president rode together for an hour in ‘The Beast’
He spoke about how the government started the program for those fleeing repression in Venezuela and then expanded it to Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians.
Biden landed Sunday at the new Felipe Angeles International Airport, a pet project of the president, despite having few flights and having problems with running water.
That subjected Biden, who is used to scurrying through downtown areas, to a nearly hour-long drive to his hotel. But he was joined by the President for the hour-long ride in The Beast, Biden’s presidential limousine.
That was Biden’s biggest piece of diplomacy to date. He has no public events until after 4 p.m. local time, although he should receive his daily presidential briefing.
Sullivan indicated that the limo ride was useful but would not divulge details.
“Yesterday he had the opportunity to drive back to the city from the airport with President Lopez Obrador, which gave them a chance to just have a one-on-one chat. How they see the world right now – what they think. I think they both got a lot out of it,” he said.