Mexico on Thursday called on the United States and Canada to stop “rejecting migrants” because they need them to develop economically, and proposed that these countries develop a common economic strategy to reduce their dependence on imports by from Asia.
This was stated by the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; the President of the United States, Joe Biden; and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the 9th North American Leaders’ Summit, held at the White House.
“Why not study the demand for labor and open up migratory flows in an orderly fashion?López Obrador said during his trilateral meeting with Biden and Trudeau, which ended a long day of meetings.
The Mexican president declared that it was necessary “to stop rejecting migrants” because “to grow, you need a workforce that is not sufficient in the United States or Canada”.
This message contrasted with that expressed by Biden during his speech shortly before: the American president believed that the three countries had to “manage the challenges of an unprecedented migration” on the continent.
Focus on migration
Biden has said he wants to build a more humane immigration system, but his government continues to deport most of the undocumented migrants who arrive at its southern border without giving them the opportunity to seek asylum, on the basis of a measure known as “Title 42” and which his government justifies for the pandemic.
The White House has increased its contacts with the countries of the continent to try to contain the massive arrival of undocumented immigrants at its border with Mexico, and it had to manage in September a crisis due to the entry of thousands of Haitian immigrants, most of whom deported to Haiti. .
Despite sending this message to Biden on migratory flows, López Obrador thanked him for proposing from his first day in power an immigration reform to regularize the 11 million undocumented migrants living in the United States. United, which in many cases is Mexican.
“No president in the history of the United States has demonstrated such a clear and unequivocal commitment to improving the situation of migrants,” López Obrador told Biden at the trilateral meeting.
Biden’s proposed immigration reform bill stalled in Congress, and other Democrats’ initiatives to regularize undocumented migrants under the social spending program debated by the legislature have failed for the moment.
López Obrador raised the issue both in the trilateral meeting and in the one-on-one meeting he held alone with Biden and in one he held earlier with the vice-president. US President Kamala Harris and said Mexico “will know how to reciprocate with gratitude and friendship” if undocumented migrants are finally regularized.
Less imports
The other issue that the Mexican president put on the table was his desire to develop a “regional economic strategy” for North America to take the pulse with China, and which, according to him, involves “producing” more in the region. region, in a context of supply chain crisis and inflation.
“This involves jointly planning our development and promoting a productive investment program in North America for import substitution,” said López Obrador.
Neither Biden nor Trudeau responded to López Obrador’s proposal during the public portion of the meeting, but the three agreed on their willingness to strengthen economic and trade ties on the basis of the T-MEC trilateral trade deal. .
The meeting came days after the United States finally opened borders with Mexico and Canada to non-essential travel, after more than a year of closure due to the pandemic, but not all were smiling on economically.
Trudeau’s complaint
Trudeau arrived at the summit concerned about a Biden plan to induce the purchase of US-made electric vehicles, included in a social spending bill awaiting congressional approval, and the US president has acknowledged that he was evaluating the changes to be made in Canada.
The day also included the first in-person bilateral meeting to date between Biden and López Obrador, in which the US president assured the Mexican that the two would be “equal countries.”
The Mexican leader responded by thanking him for not treating Mexico as a “backyard” and celebrated his “respectful treatment”.
The trilateral summit, commonly known as the “three friends” summit and which was normally organized annually, was held for the first time since 2016, after four years under the mandate of Donald Trump.
La producción de vacunas contra el covid-19 y la estrategia contra la crisis climática completaron the agenda of the meeting, que se cerró sin la rueda de prensa conjunta tradicional, algo que muchos periodistas criticaron y que la Casa Blanca achacó a lo apretado de la Agenda.
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