Mexican President to meet with Biden following recent tensions

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel López Obrador announced he will meet with President Biden in Washington today. This comes a month after López Obrador snubbed Biden’s invitation to the summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.

Today's conversations will signal how well their administrations can manage a challenging bilateral agenda. Their meeting will focus on tackling cross-border smuggling of drugs, people, and arms; facilitating trade of $1 million dollars a minute; and modernizing the border to enable commerce and security. These tasks are complicated by lingering effects of the pandemic, such as supply chain disruptions, and by high inflation and rising energy and food prices sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

A good outcome from their conversations would include clear signals of a detailed plan to manage migrant flows. This would include effective steps to adjust to the elimination of the "Remain in Mexico" program, the expected end of expulsions justified by the pandemic, and cracking down on migrant smuggling. It also would include serious commitment to building regional cooperation, as agreed at the Summit of the Americas.