Development: On 13 July Mexico’s President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador met a top-level delegation from the US government, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in Mexico City.
Significance: This is the first face-to-face meeting between López Obrador and senior members of the US government. It follows fast on the heels of a phone conversation between López Obrador and US President Donald Trump in which both men revealed they discussed a specific bilateral accord, in addition to issues such as the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and immigration.
- Pompeo led a delegation including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner. They first met President Enrique Peña Nieto to discuss trade and immigration issues, but this was little more than a courtesy call. The real reason for the visit was to meet López Obrador, who won election on 1 July with the largest margin of victory of any Mexican presidential candidate since 1985 and will enjoy a majority in both chambers of the federal congress.
- López Obrador was accompanied by his incoming foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, who described the meeting as “frank, respectful, and cordial”, and as providing cause for “reasonable optimism”. Beyond these platitudes, little is known about the content of the talks. But López Obrador did apparently present the US delegation with a set of proposals to improve bilateral cooperation on a range of issues.
- No detail of the proposals has been disclosed, but following his recent phone conversation with Trump, López Obrador said the two men had discussed an agreement on development projects in Mexico which would serve to create jobs, as well as improve security and reduce migration (a major domestic policy problem for the Trump administration).
Looking Ahead: The visit by such a high-level US delegation less than two weeks after Mexico's general election is a sign not just of the importance the US government attaches to bilateral relations but also a recognition that López Obrador will provide a very different proposition as Mexican head of state to any of his immediate predecessors.