News / Foreign Policy / Mexico

Biden to meet Lopez Obrador after summit snub amid border 'lack of control'

Tuesday, 28 June 2022 5:26 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 28 June 2022 5:26 PM ]

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (L) and US President Joe Biden

US President Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are scheduled to meet next month.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard confirmed on Twitter on Tuesday that the two leaders were to meet in Washington on July 12.

He said the meeting's agenda had already been agreed upon with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the White House team.

The issue of migration will top the agenda.

Last month, Lopez Obrador made news by refusing to take part in the US-led Summit of the Americas.

US leadership bid dealt setback as Americas leaders snub invitation

US President Joe Biden’s bid to reassert leadership in Americas where mistrust of the US runs deep is dealt a blow as several south and central American countries opt to stay away from a summit in Los Angeles.

The Mexican president pulled out of the event after the White House refused to invite the leaders of Cuba and Nicaragua, as well as representatives from Venezuela, to the Summit of Americas.

Obrador slammed Washington's outdated foreign policy of exclusion of leftist countries, insisting that the White House needed to change its desire to dominate the world without any good reason for it. “There can be no Summit of the Americas if all the countries of the American continent do not participate,” Lopez Obrador said back then in May. “Or there can be, but we believe that means continuing of old politics of interventionism, of a lack of respect of their communities.”

Latin American leaders from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador also declined to participate in the Americas Summit due to Washington’s policy of exclusion after it refused to invite Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba to the event.

In related news, at least 50 asylum-seekers were found dead on Monday in and around a tractor-trailer that was abandoned on the roadside on the outskirts of the city of San Antonio in the southern US state of Texas.

'Stacks of bodies': At least 46 migrants found dead in truck in Texas

At least 46 migrants were found dead Monday in a tractor-trailer that was abandoned on the roadside on the outskirts of the Texas city.

In reaction to the incident, Lopez Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, said on Tuesday morning, that "poverty and desperation of our Central American brothers, and of Mexicans," was the root cause of this "tremendous tragedy". He also blamed criminal trafficking networks and "a lack of control" at the border as additional factors leading to the deadly incident.

Lopez Obrador said 22 of the dead were Mexican nationals, while seven were from Guatemala and two from Honduras. The nationalities of the remaining 19 people had yet to be confirmed. He said Mexican officials would work with US authorities to repatriate the remains of its citizens.

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