MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Joe Biden opened his visit to the North American leaders summit with a diplomatic gesture that landed well with his host, Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, before the two leaders were to begin Monday on weighty matters including immigration, trade and climate change.
Biden made his arrival in Mexico City on Sunday night via the new Felipe Angeles International Airport, a prized project of the Mexican president. The hub was christened last year with fanfare, though it’s more than an hour’s drive north of the city center, has few flights and until recently lacked consistent drinking water.
López Obrador suggested on Monday that a parole agreement might be extended to send more illegal migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti back to Mexico when they cross into the U.S. from there.
That could help resolve a problem with deporting illegal migrants to home countries with which the U.S. has shaky relations. Lopez Obrador said that issue could be part of the leaders’ discussions.
“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.”
Late Sunday, the two leaders took the long drive into the city center in Biden’s limousine. The Mexican president called that first exchange “a good encounter, President Biden is a friendly person ... it was all very pleasant.”
That was a welcome comment for the talks given that the two leaders’ relationship has been merely transactional at best and absent the warmth and camaraderie Biden has with some other world leaders
Lopez Obrador said the two also discussed “the migration issue … we agreed on addressing the causes of migration,” by generating more opportunities for people so they wouldn’t have to migrate.
He also talked about economic integration of the nations, calling “it is a dream we can make reality, which is to unite all the countries of the Americas.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was arriving later Monday, and the trio will spend the next two days discussing migration and the other major issues.
“This gathering will deepen our coordination and advance our shared priorities for North America,” Biden tweeted after he arrived.
Ahead of the summit, Biden announced a major U.S.-Mexico border policy shift, with Mexico’s blessing. The U.S. will send 30,000 migrants per month from four other countries back across the border — from among those who entered the U.S. illegally. For those who enter legally, the U.S. will accept 30,000 people per month from those four countries — Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela — for two years and offer the ability to work legally.
On his way to Mexico, Biden stopped in El Paso, Texas, for four hours — his first trip to the border as president and the longest he’s spent along the U.S-Mexico line. The visit was highly controlled and seemed designed to showcase a smooth operation to process migrants entering legally, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely treat those who’ve entered illegally. That would create a counter-narrative to Republicans’ claims of a crisis situation equivalent to an open border.
But it was likely to do little to quell critics from both sides, including immigrant advocates who accuse the Democratic president of establishing cruel policies not unlike those of his hard-line predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.
The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take measures that would resemble those of Trump’s administration.
López Obrador will formally welcome Biden at the Palacio Nacional later Monday, the first time since 2014 that Mexico has hosted a U.S. president. The two leaders will meet together ahead of a private dinner for all three leaders and their wives. Biden and Trudeau will hold their own talks Tuesday, and then the three leaders will gather for the main summit discussions.
For the U.S., the major talking points are migration, drug trafficking and building on Biden’s push on electric vehicles and manufacturing. Mexico is focused on economic integration for North America, supporting the poor in the Americas and regional relationships that put all governments on equal footing. Canada is looking to expand on green initiatives.
While the three nations work together, they still have their differences.
The leaders of Canada and Mexico have voiced concerns over Biden’s “Buy American” plan. And while Biden’s push toward electric vehicles is a boon to both U.S. neighbors because of the tax credits for North American batteries, there’s concern the U.S. allies will be left behind.
Meantime, the U.S. and Canada accuse López Obrador of trying to favor Mexico’s state-owned utility over power plants built by foreign and private investors, something that’s forbidden under the three countries’ free trade pact.
Biden’s relationship with Trudeau is warmer, but he still hasn’t made it to Canada during his presidency, despite White House officials saying for months he planned to head north following a summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last fall.
López Obrador skipped the California summit because Biden didn’t invite the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. He’s also made no secret of his admiration for Trump. And he was one of only three world leaders who didn’t recognize Biden’s election victory until after the formal Electoral College vote and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But despite this, they each recognize the other’s importance.
“They are both consummate politicians,” Andrew Selee, head of the immigration think tank Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said of Biden and López Obrador. “They’re looking for what the other person needs, and they’re trying to make clear what they need. It’s very transactional. There isn’t a big vision for the relationship right now.”
For Biden, that meant flying into the new airport, one of four keystone projects López Obrador is racing to finish before his term ends next year, as Mexico doesn’t allow reelection. The other projects are an oil refinery, a tourist train in the Yucatan Peninsula and a train linking Gulf coast and Pacific seaports.
Lopez Obrador has faced massive criticism over the airport that expected to cost $4.1 billion and was built after López Obrador canceled the partly constructed airport created by his predecessor. During construction of Felipe Angeles in 2020, hundreds of mammoth skeletons were uncovered.
On Monday, Lopez Obrador told reporters their hour long ride together was a “good encounter.” “President Biden is a friendly person .. it was all very pleasant”
López Obrador, like many Mexicans, was fascinated by the presidential limousine known as “the beast,” and said Biden showed it off to him.
“He himself showed me how the buttons work,” Lopez Obrador said.
