Hours after criticizing US aid to NGO, Lopez Obrador holds meeting with Kamala Harris
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador met virtually with US Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday, just hours after harshly criticizing US aid to a Mexican anti-corruption NGO.
Ahead of the reunion, Lopez Obrador announced that Mexico had sent a diplomatic note to the US to explain funding - from the US Agency for International Development - for the group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, which investigates political corruption.
"It's a form of coup," Lopez Obrador said. "That's why we're asking that (the US government) clarifies this for us. A foreign government can't provide money to political groups."
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The organization has in the past been critical of a number of Obrador administration initiatives, including the cancellation of Mexico City's new airport project and the planned construction of a tourist train in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Despite Lopez Obrador's comments - which had the potential to embarrass the US administration ahead of the call - the reunion went cordially.
"Mexico is our closest neighbor and we share a border of course, but we also share the values of dignity and respect," Harris said at the beginning of the meeting, before reporters had to leave. "We share the bonds of family and friendships and we also share, of course, a long, deep and complex history."
Harris vowed that the relationship between the two countries is particularly important amid "serious challenges", including the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic impact, a recent surge of migrants at the border.
"We must fight violence," she said. "We must fight corruption." Lopez Obrador was equally conciliatory in his public remarks.
"We have so many things in common," he said. "We are in agreement when it comes to the policies that you are undertaking when it comes to migration, and we will help."
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While Lopez Obrador said that he had a "specific proposal" that will be "convenient", he did not disclose what it was during the public portion of the meeting. Ahead of the call, he had told reporters that a tree-planting jobs program in Central America - that would lead to US work visas - was an important priority.
In a statement following the call, senior advisor and chief spokesperson Symone Sanders said that Harris and Lopez Obrador agreed to a "strategic partnership" to address the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle, including efforts to spur economic development in the region, as well as to work together to dismantle migrant and human trafficking networks.
Harris is scheduled to visit Mexico and Guatemala on June 7 and 8, her first foreign trip as Vice President.