López Obrador proposes to Biden the economic integration "of the entire American continent"

López Obrador had 60 minutes to convince Biden. The presidents of Mexico and the United States talked for an hour aboard the beast, the black armoured Cadillac that transports the White House occupant. The world's most secure vehicle, a wheeled bunker capable even of withstanding heavy weapons attacks, barely contained the arguments of the Mexican leader, popularly known as AMLO, who tried to persuade his interlocutor of the importance of integrating the economies of all the countries of the American continent into a single body as they drove to Mexico City. 

The Mexican president said he had conveyed to Biden that "it is not enough to integrate North America", but that "we must think about consolidating our entire continent". AMLO is committed to including more Latin American states in the select club of Canada, Mexico and the United States. An ambitious proposal that coincides with the celebration of the tenth North American Leaders' Summit in his country, known as the Three Amigos Summit, a regional forum founded in 2005 with the intention of strengthening relations. 

The leaders of the three countries met on Tuesday in Mexico to discuss trilateral and bilateral issues. Issues such as migration, economic cooperation and regional security, closely linked to the criminal activities of drug cartels, will be on the agenda. Biden, López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will pick up where they left off in November 2021, when they last met in Washington.

The work has piled up under Trump, who decided to plant a wall - literal and figurative - with his neighbours, but the problems remain the same. The context has changed: trilateral trade is booming, especially economic connections between the United States and Mexico. They increased by almost 20 per cent in 2022, according to the US Census Bureau. Moreover, tensions between Washington and Beijing have prompted the US giant to relocate its factories to Mexican soil. 

Biden, who landed on Sunday at the newly opened Felipe Angeles International Airport, built on the outskirts of the megalopolis of Mexico City, has become the first US president to visit the neighbouring country in nearly a decade. The last to do so was Barack Obama, who attended a meeting with the other two US heads of government in 2014. This is also the Democrat's first visit to Latin America since occupying the White House, in a convulsive scenario for the region.

Bolsonaro's assault on Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court - the seats of Brazil's three branches of government - has triggered a strong reaction from the international community, which has closed ranks with current president Lula da Silva. Latin American leaders, led by AMLO, have denounced the frontal attack on democratic institutions promoted by the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is now holed up in a rented mansion in Orlando (Florida). Biden and Trudeau, both present in Mexico, have also condemned what happened. 

The three-day summit promises to be intense. New border security measures put in place by the Biden administration give authorities the ability to remove migrants without allowing them to apply for asylum. The package of measures also includes an agreement with Mexico to accept the hot return of tens of thousands of Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians who cross the border into the United States without authorisation.

AMLO, one of the leading exponents of the Latin American left, has become a decisive ally of the US on this issue. Throughout 2022, the Mexican government detained 388,611 migrants from Central America and other regions, more than double the number in 2019. Record numbers, as well as those recorded by the Border Patrol, which encountered more than 1.5 million migrants trying to get over the wall.

A day before landing in Mexico, Biden travelled to the town of El Paso. He walked near the border fence for the first time since taking office in January 2021 and entered a migrant assistance centre. He was criticised by all political sectors and human rights groups, who denounced the continuation of Trump's policies. While the Republican governor of Texas, George Abbot, accused him of being too lax. 

Biden's visit to Mexico comes days after the arrest of Chapo Guzmán's son, Ovidio Guzmán, alias El Ratón, one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, whose arrest unleashed chaos in the narco-held city of Culiacán. The son of Chapo's second wife is linked to the trafficking of fentanyl to the United States, a corrosive opioid that is causing a veritable epidemic in the United States. For the time being, Mexico will not extradite him to its northern neighbour. 

A single sticking point strains bilateral relations between Washington and Mexico City: energy. López Obrador has recently adopted a series of protectionist energy policies that have irritated his partners. In fact, both the United States and Canada have filed a formal complaint that these policies violate the Free Trade Agreement, initiating a process that could lead to sanctions against Mexico. The summit will serve to iron out differences.

Coordinator America: José Antonio Sierra