U.S. President Joe Biden, left, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Photo: Google

PULSE NEWS MEXICO

Both U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are slated to make their first official visits to Mexico in those capacities in early January to attend the North American Leaders Summit (NALS), which will be hosted by Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) starting on Jan. 9.

During his daily press conference on Friday, Nov. 25, López Obrador announced that he will be hosting the two-day trilateral conference, often referred to as the Tres Amigos Summit, noting that while it had originally been slated to take place in December, it had been postponed until early 2023.

AMLO also said that he would take advantage of Biden’s and Trudeau’s presence in Mexico to meet individually with each of them prior to the NALS summit.

Although the Mexican president did not detail what issues he would be discussing with his fellow North American leaders, no doubt the loggerheaded consultations on Mexico’s controversial new energy policies, which favor state-run, carbon-based power over clean alternatives, and AMLO’s decree to block the import of genetically modified corn into the country might crop up — both topics that Washington and Ottawa have claimed violate Mexico’s commitments under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

The growing flood of undocumented migrants into the United States from Mexico, along with an increase in illicit fentanyl crossing the border, are also expected to be discussed.

Due to the global covid-19 pandemic, the NALS has not taken place for three years, when it was last held in Washington, D.C., in November 2019.