President Joe Biden declared the U.S. and Costa Rica are “united by the vision we share” while hosting the Central American country’s President Rodrigo Chaves at the White House on Tuesday.
“A vision for a future of greater opportunity and freedom and equality, and quite frankly dignity — dignity for all our people,” Biden said during brief remarks at the top of the Oval Office meeting.
The two leaders were set to discuss migration, economic ties and democratic values as the Biden administration continues its efforts to strengthen its commitment to Latin America. Biden on Tuesday also made clear security was top of mind.
“Today I also want to thank you for deepening our security cooperation, that is one of my objectives today and I hope yours, including dealing with organized crime,” the president told Chaves who acknowledged the country’s security challenges.
Costa Rica, which saw a record number of homicides last year, is facing rising violence and crime thought to be related to drug trafficking.
Migration is also a key topic for both countries as the U.S. wrestles with the influx of migrants at its southern border and Costa Rica manages hundreds of thousands of asylum requests – with 240,000 already in the system in the Central American country that has a population of just 5 million people, according to the Associated Press.
In June, the two countries agreed to work on legal pathways to the U.S. for some of the Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants seeking asylum in Costa Rica.
Biden on Tuesday thanked the Costa Rican president for his “leadership on the migration challenges that we face every single day.” The Democratic president has sought to strengthen ties with Latin America as his administration looks to counter China’s influence in the region and also manage migration to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Last June, Biden hosted the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, where he announced an agreement to bolster economic partnership in the region.
On Tuesday, the president brought up the key principle of his economic agenda, which is his oft-repeated phrase of growing the economy from the “middle-out and bottom-up, not the top down.”
Chaves said he agreed with Biden’s vision and that “prosperity should be shared widely.”
“I can affirm to you, Mr. President, that Costa Rica has been and shall remain one of the strongest allies in the world regarding your economic and security interests that are ours,” Chaves told Biden.
In March, the Biden administration granted the Costa Rican government $25 million for cybersecurity following a series of ransomware attacks – one of which the Russian-speaking Conti gang claimed responsibility for.
The last U.S. president to host a Costa Rican president at the White House was George W. Bush in 2006.
