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LatinNews Daily - 19 November 2021

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MEXICO: North American leaders pledge to work together

On 18 November, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met US President Joe Biden and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at the first North American Leaders’ Summit in five years, hosted in Washington DC. 

Analysis:

The re-launch of this trilateral relationship (also dubbed the ‘Three Amigos’) after a five-year hiatus is testimony to Biden’s efforts to repair the damage caused by his predecessor Donald Trump’s (2017-2021) aggressive and go-it-alone approach to foreign relations. Now bound by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on regional trade, the successor to the defunct North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), the three North American leaders sought to display their friendly relations - but some key points of contention remain. 

  • Biden held bilateral meetings with Trudeau and then López Obrador, before the three leaders met together. This was the first time that Biden, who took office in January, and López Obrador, who rarely travels abroad, met in person. 
  • A joint statement released after the meeting between the three leaders speaks of “Building back better: a secure, prosperous North America”, promising collaboration across a number of areas, including overcoming the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, addressing the climate crisis, coordinating a response on migration, and fostering economic competitiveness. 
  • A subsequent White House statement highlights, amongst other things, a North American strategy to reduce methane emissions and an agreement to donate Covid-19 vaccines to Latin American nations. “Our North American vision for the future draws on our shared strength”, Biden said. 
  • The friendly meeting and display of understanding belied underlying points of friction, notably over energy issues and trade. A contentious electricity sector reform pushed by López Obrador, which would give a bigger market share to the state-owned Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) to the detriment of private renewable energy providers, is criticised by US businesses, and also raises concerns over environmental consequences as it would effectively prioritise fossil fuels. Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said that López Obrador touched upon his reasons for the reform in the trilateral meeting, but that it was not a central issue. 
  • Biden’s ‘Buy American’ trade provisions, which would amongst other things give US consumers tax credits for purchasing US-made electric vehicles, are viewed negatively by both Mexico and Canada, although the US denies that this is a protectionist move that violates the USMCA. 
  • On migration, an issue on which the US continues to pressure Mexico as Biden faces political pressure domestically, López Obrador questioned restrictive migration policies given the US and Canada’s need for migrant labour. “Why not study the labour demand and open orderly migration flows?” López Obrador suggested, adding that better North American integration is needed for the region to face China’s expansion. 
  • In a small win for López Obrador – who has faced criticisms from human rights groups over Mexico’s role in helping the US try to stem irregular migration flows – Ebrard said that the Biden administration agreed to help support the expansion of Mexican social programmes, such as the ‘Sembrando Vida’ tree-planting initiative, to Central America as part of efforts to tackle the root causes of migration.   

Looking Ahead: Testing the US and Mexico’s renewed pledge to “prioritise respect for and the guarantee of [migrants’] human rights” as stated in the trilateral joint statement, a new US-bound caravan of some 3,000 migrants reportedly set off from Southern Mexico yesterday.

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