President Joe Biden on Tuesday was expected to discuss migration, trade and energy with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in a trilateral gathering to culiminate the North American leaders summit in Mexico this week.
After posing for a photo at the National Palace in Mexico City along with their spouses, the three leaders began the meeting Tuesday afternoon and were expected to speak to the press later in the day.
“This trip is a good opportunity for President Biden to deepen his personal engagement” with the two leaders, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday.
Sullivan said migration, stemming the flow of fentanyl and trade would be the three topics top of mind for the leaders throughout the summit, along with cooperation on clean energy.
Biden first met with Prime Minister Trudeau earlier in the day, his second major engagement of the trip.
According to a White House readout of the meeting, the two leaders discussed discussed migration, strengthening supply chains for semiconductors and electric vehicles, combatting climate change and defense and security cooperation. Biden and Trudeau specifically touched on security and the humanitarian situation in Haiti and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Biden is also set to make his first visit to Canada as president in March, the White House announced in a release.
At the top of the meeting, Biden thanked the prime minister for his continued partnership.
“You’ve always been there whenever I’ve called,” Biden said, noting what he called the “unlimited economic potential” of the hemisphere when North American countries work together.
Trudeau said he was excited to chat with Biden about “more local issues” in a sense, after the two had most recently coordinated on things further from home, such as the Russian invasion in Ukraine or competing with China.
The top of the meeting had a more friendly tone than was felt between Biden and López Obrador on Monday evening, when López Obrador suggested the U.S. had for decades neglected the region and Latin America as a whole.
On the topic of Haiti, national security adviser Sullivan said, Trudeau and Biden were set to dsicuss the idea of ensuring basic goods like fuel, food and medicine were readily available. That would also include talks about potentially sending security support to the Haitian National Police, something that could see Canada could play a lead role, Sullivan said.
Throughout the summit, the three leaders were also expected to talk about an energy complaint from the U.S. and Canada about Mexico, which they say is violating a free trade pact by favoring the country’s state-owned utility over power plants built by foreign and private investors.
Migration was at the forefront of the summit after President Biden announced new policies last week in an attempt to reduce the number of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border by restricting migrants from certain countries.
Under the plan, the U.S. will send 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela back across the border from among those who entered the U.S. illegally. Migrants who arrive from those four countries are not easily returned to their home countries for a variety of reasons.
On Monday, before the summit began, López Obrador said he would consider accepting more migrants than previously announced.
“We don’t want to anticipate things, but this is part of what we are going to talk about at the summit,” López Obrador said. “We support this type of measures, to give people options, alternatives,” he said, adding that “the numbers may be increased.”
Biden and López Obrador held the first official meeting on Monday evening, which began with a tense exchange.
Mexico’s president challenged Biden to improve life across the region, telling him that “you hold the key in your hand.”
“This is the moment for us to determine to do away with this abandonment, this disdain, and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, second from left, speaks during a meeting with President Joe Biden at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
He also complained that too many imports are coming from Asia instead of being produced in the Americas.
“We ask ourselves, couldn’t we produce in America what we consume?” he said. “Of course.”
Biden responded by defending the billions of dollars that the United States spends in foreign aid around the world, saying “unfortunately our responsibility just doesn’t end in the Western Hemisphere.” And he referenced U.S. deaths from fentanyl, a drug that flows over the border from Mexico.
While both men pledged to work together, it was a noticeably sharp exchange, on full display before reporters. They met privately for about an hour before having dinner with Trudeau and their wives.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, attend an arrival ceremony as they arrive to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Obrador’s wife Beatriz Gutierrez Muller, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The meeting is held most years, although there was a hiatus while Donald Trump was U.S. president. It’s often called the “three amigos summit,” a reference to the deep diplomatic and economic ties between the countries, but new strains have emerged.
All three countries are struggling to handle an influx of people arriving in North America and to crack down on smugglers who profit from persuading migrants to make the dangerous trip to the U.S.
