Relations between the Mexican and US governments will not be at their finest. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s vitality reform threatens billions of {dollars} of US funding in renewable vitality.
5 weeks in the past, Lopez Obrador snubbed an invite to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, which the US authorities had sought to make use of to reinvigorate its relationship with Latin America.
Every week in the past, Lopez expressed help for Julian Assange. He has mentioned that if the whistleblower is imprisoned within the US, the Statue of Liberty in New York must be dismantled and returned to France.
Different heads of state would face critical criticism for such slights, which have fanned diplomatic tensions. As a substitute, Lopez Obrador acquired an invite to Washington. On Tuesday, the 68-year-old is to fulfill with the 79-year-old US President Joe Biden.
Mexico and the US are free-trade companions and want one another to sort out world challenges starting from migration to provide chains to drug trafficking.
Little expertise, poor technique
Specialists, nonetheless, anticipate little new from the assembly. That is as a result of there’s not a lot chemistry between the 2 leaders.
“Lopez Obrador acquired alongside higher with [Biden’s predecessor] Donald Trump,” Rodrigo Montes de Oca of the Baker Institute Heart for america and Mexico informed DW. “I see no political will to enhance the connection on the a part of Mexico, there may be poor technique on the a part of the US and little diplomatic expertise on both aspect,” he mentioned.
As well as, each leaders are eyeing their very own home priorities. For Biden, these are the midterm elections for Congress within the fall; Mexico’s president is already campaigning for his successor in 2024 and hopes to attain factors with US bashing within the absence of any concrete outcomes relating to financial and safety coverage.
Migration in shadow of home politics
“The defining situation in bilateral relations is migration,”Lila Abed, deputy director of the Mexico Institute on the US assume tank Wilson Heart, informed DW.
The US has seen a document inflow of migrants at its southern border, prompting criticism of the Biden administration
“Migration is a hazard for Biden forward of the midterm elections as a result of the Republicans will attempt to wrest management of Congress from him on this situation.” Biden, she mentioned, wants an settlement with Mexico and Lopez Obrador, in flip, is aware of that Mexico holds the important thing to the US southern border
In alternate for sealing off the border, Lopez Obrador is asking the US to extend the variety of short-term work visas it grants to Mexican employees. The Mexican chief additionally desires monetary help for the mixing of migrants who don’t make it to america and stay in Mexico. He desires to take a position the cash primarily within the structurally weaker south, his voter stronghold.
Unhealthy picture, belief in brief provide
Home coverage is what each leaders are primarily involved with relating to migration. Abed expects an settlement of some sort on the problem, however whether or not will probably be carried out is one other matter, she added.
“Each work visas and extra money require the approval of the US Congress,” Montes de Oca mentioned. “And Lopez Obrador has a really dangerous picture amongst congressmen and senators within the US.”
That has principally to do with the vitality counter-reform, and with additional violations of the Joint Free Commerce Settlement. However, additionally with issues in cooperation on safety points.
Lopez Obrador has backed away from army confrontation with the cartels and expelled quite a few models of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
“This has eroded belief,” Abed mentioned. “For the US, curbing drug trafficking is a precedence; for Mexico, curbing arms trafficking is a precedence. However the one technique to tackle these two challenges is to work collectively.”
Mexico has been racked by violent drug-related crime with cartels battle one another and the federal government cracks down on traffickers
‘Few concrete outcomes’
All in all, Montes de Oca is skeptical in regards to the assembly: “I anticipate pure rhetoric and few concrete outcomes,” he mentioned.
It will not be the primary time that Lopez Obrador informed america what it needed to listen to after which defined that he had not meant it that means. That occurred throughout a go to of the US particular envoy for local weather safety, John Kerry. However it’s unclear whether or not this ploy will work once more.
“The US undoubtedly has potentialities to place strain on the Mexican financial system and thus additionally on the president through the free commerce settlement,” Abed mentioned.
Even when the 2 presidents fail to gel with one another, the 2 international locations are linked in so many ways in which collaboration on the cultural, educational, financial and administrative ranges will proceed to take its standard course.
Such collaboration grew to become much less essential below Trump’s customized type of international coverage carried out on Twitter.
“Below Biden, nonetheless, bilateral coverage has develop into extra institutional once more,” Abed says.
This text was initially written in German