Biden and Lopez Obrador meet at the White House with a focus on migration

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, met this Tuesday with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at the White House with a focus on migration, the improvement of border infrastructure and the labor rights of migrants.

“My Administration is leading the way to create job opportunities through legal channels,” Biden said, recalling that Washington registered a record number of visas issued to Mexican workers last year.

Thus, the U.S. president stressed the “historic” investments –3,400 million dollars (3,381 million euros)- in infrastructure for the border with Mexico. “Our nations share close ties,” he remarked.

For his part, Lopez Obrador has stressed that it is “indispensable” the regularization of migrants, who “work honestly and contribute to the development of this great nation.” “I know that his adversaries, the conservatives, are going to cry out loud, but without a bold program of development and welfare it will not be possible to solve the problem,” he said.

López Obrador has suggested concrete measures to Biden, such as the suspension of tariffs to regularize prices between nations, as well as a joint public-private investment plan. “Mexico has used 72 percent of its crude oil exports to the United States”, he added.

In this sense, he has explained that “the current circumstances” drive the strengthening of “ties of friendship and cooperation”, especially for being “difficult times”, as reported by the newspaper ‘Milenio’.

Likewise, Biden assured that Washington has made progress in the fight against drug trafficking, having deployed 1,300 effects, developed 1,000 operations and more than 3,000 arrests, according to the newspaper.

Previously, López Obrador has had another meeting with the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, of whom he has said that she is “a woman with principles”, as well as “intelligent”, “honest” and “supporter of equality”.

Biden has met as many as four times with the president of Mexico. They met in person for the first time on November 18, 2021, and also had two other virtual meetings, on March 1, 2021 and April 29, 2022.

Mexico has been criticizing the United States for putting pressure on the country in the face of the electricity reform, while, for its part, the Latin American country has judged Biden’s decision not to have invited countries such as Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua to the last Summit of the Americas.

Likewise, López Obrador also maintains the pulse with the Biden Administration regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as he refused to join the sanctions against Russia, while he recently criticized NATO’s policy calling it “immoral”, and called Washington’s aid to Kiev a “gross mistake”.