The three North American leaders met in Mexico City this week, pledging more cooperation on increased migration in the region, energy policies and trade disputes. It was a hefty agenda for the first visit to Mexico by a U.S. president since 2014, but the trip was an important effort to thaw an icy relationship with a key trading partner.
It’s a relief seeing the three leaders together at the North American Leaders’ Summit this week after nearly two years of politically fraught relations between President Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The Mexican leader refused to acknowledge Biden’s election victory for about five weeks. Then last year, he boycotted the Summit of the Americas, hosted by the U.S., because Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited. However, leaders in the U.S. and Mexico warmly celebrated the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations in December.
The “Three Amigos” summit, as this week’s meeting is informally called, helped cement the relationship among the U.S., Canada and Mexico at a critical time of rising economic and political instability in the Americas. Notably, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Biden and López Obrador issued a joint statement denouncing the anti-democratic attacks in Haiti.
