Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, right, embraces close friend and political ally Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel upon his arrival in Campeche on Saturday, Feb. 11. Photo: presidencia.gob.mx

PULSE NEWS MEXICO

In what constituted Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel’s fourth official visit to Mexico in four years, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on Saturday, Feb. 11, decorated the former in a ceremony in the southern Mexican state of Campeche.

Díaz-Canal — who arrived at the Campeche International Airport at 8:22 a.m. Saturday on a Conviasa airline plane accompanied by a team of 61 Cuban doctors who will join 1,100 other Cuban doctors already working in Mexico — was received by AMLO with a warm embrace as he stepped off the plane and then accompanied the Mexican head of state to the nearby Edzná archaeological site, where López Obrador awarded him with the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest distinction that the Mexican government gives to foreigners.

Later, Díaz-Canal and López Obrador visited the stalled construction of the Tren Maya tourist train, one of AMLO’s three pet infrastructure megaprojects, where López Obrador announced that the Cuban government will be helping by providing ballast (stabilizing stone) materials.

Last year, Cuba sold more than 20,000 tons of ballast to Mexico to be used in the Tren Maya project., and the new shipment will include a total of 43,000 tons.

Later in the day, a Mexico-Cuba Bilateral Meeting was held top promote two-way trade and political cooperation.

AMLO took the opportunity to ask Díaz-Canal to send even more Cuban doctors to work in Mexico.

López Obrador has irked both conservatives and the United States by praising the Cuban dictatorship and repeatedly condemning the U.S trade embargo against the communist island.

He also refused to attend the Summit of the Americas, hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden in Los Angeles, California, in June of last year to protest that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited to attend.