- President Biden will take part in a ‘virtual event’ with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
- The White House said the two discussed migration, COVID-19 and economic cooperation.
- López Obrador only acknowledged Biden’s victory in 2020 until mid-December.
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US President Joe Biden will attend a ‘virtual event’ on Monday with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a center-left populist who has worked closely with the Trump administration to stop migration from Central America.
The March 1 meeting, announced by the White House, follows after López Obrador for weeks refused to recognize Biden’s 2020 victory. However, after his victory was formalized by the Electoral College in mid-December, the Mexican head of state sent a letter to Biden in recognition of your position in favor of migrants from Mexico and the rest of the world.
The two leaders then agreed on a December 19 call to work together on a ‘new approach’ to migration from Central America. They also spoke shortly after Biden was inaugurated.
According to the White House, the agenda on Monday includes ‘co-operation on migration’, as well as COVID-19 and ‘joint development efforts’ in the Americas.
Shortly after taking office, Biden announced that he was terminating the “Stay in Mexico” program, forcing asylum seekers to wait their business south of the border. He also announced that those who are subject to the program are now eligible to come to the US.
During the previous government, Mexico worked closely with its leading trading partner to prevent migrants from reaching the US, deploying thousands of troops and setting up police checkpoints across the country to arrest people coming from Honduras and Guatemala.