Leaders of US, Mexico and Canada to Hold Mexico City Summit

By Staff, Agencies

The leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States are set to meet Tuesday in Mexico City for a summit the White House says will focus on security and economic cooperation in the region.

The three-way talks among Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and US President Joe Biden will follow a side session in which US and Canadian officials will discuss combatting climate change and ways to support Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion.

On Monday, migration, climate change, trade and manufacturing issues headlined US-Mexico talks as the host, Lopez Obrador, forcefully urged greater continental integration.

"Dear President Biden, I am certain that you are a humanistic president, a visionary president," Lopez Obrador said as the two leaders sat down with high-level delegations for a bilateral meeting Monday night. "And that there are conditions that couldn't really be better to initiate a new policy of integration, of economic social integration, Mr. President, in our continent."

The US president and his wife, Jill Biden, were greeted Monday by Lopez Obrador and his wife, Beatriz Gutierrez, for a welcome ceremony at the National Palace.

And on Monday evening, Biden, Trudeau and Lopez Obrador had dinner along with their spouses.

On Monday, Lopez Obrador called for greater economic integration on the continent.

"This is the moment for us to determine to do away with this abandonment, this disdain," he said. "And this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean, which is opposed to the policy of the good neighborhood, of the titans of freedom and liberty … starting with you, because there would be no other leader that could implement this enterprise."

The White House noted that the talks were nuanced and complex.

"These are sensitive conversations, they're best done behind closed doors, but the president certainly comes with that as a key part of his economic agenda here," US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists in Mexico City.

Sullivan also said there is a personal element to this summit, which is often referred to as the "3 Amigos" summit.

"This trip is a good opportunity for President Biden to deepen his personal engagement with President Lopez Obrador and Prime Minister Trudeau," Sullivan told reporters in Mexico City on Monday. "Yesterday he had the opportunity to ride with President Lopez Obrador from the airport back into town, which gave them the chance to just have a one-on-one chat of how they're seeing the world right now, what's on their minds. I think they both got a lot out of it."

Sullivan declined to give details of the conversation, but the leaders' Sunday night ride from the new Felipe Angeles International Airport, through the darkened residential outskirts of the capital and into the heart of the city, lasted about an hour.