Despite newly tense relations, Mexico's and the United States' presidents meet

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Mexico's migration policy, along with the US's lack of pressure on other issues, has turned the relationship between the US and Mexico into a major controversy over trade, energy, and climate change during the Trump administration.

According to López Obrador, he is getting along worse with Biden than with Donald Trump, who has threatened Mexico and only wants one thing from his southern neighbor: the stoppage of migrants crossing the border.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is to visit Washington on Tuesday to meet with President Joe Biden, a month after López Obrador snubbed Biden’s invitation to the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.

Mexico’s leader had demanded that Biden invite to the summit the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — all countries with anti-democratic regimes — and he has also called U.S. support for Ukraine “a crass error.”

As the Biden administration has worked on reinstitutionalizing the relationship, I believe it is more about restoring a relationship that is not solely focused on immigration and trade. Thus, AMLO becomes less comfortable discussing issues that are presented to him by the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, according to Andrew Rudman, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center.

11 July 2022