On Friday afternoon, after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador thanked Donald Trump for selling a thousand ventilators to strengthen Mexico's health system in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mexican President confirmed that he plans to meet personally with Trump within the next two to three months. If the meeting takes place, it would be the first time that AMLO -as he is known in Mexico- will leave the country since he took office in December 2018.

"President Donald Trump called me to respond to the request we made to him about the acquisition of ventilators and intensive care medical equipment," Lopez Obrador posted on his Twitter account. "This is a new gesture of solidarity with Mexico. I suggested that we meet in June or July to personally express our gratitude and to witness the implementation of the USMCA".

Recently, this outlet reported on the criticisms that Speaker Nancy Pelosi allegedly launched against AMLO behind closed doors, after Trump offered to cover the oil barrel reduction that Mexico was due to make to comply with the OPEC+ agreement.

Pelosi allegedly referred to a sort of electoral agreement between López Obrador and Trump, an argument that also was being used by opponents of the Mexican government. The Democrat believes that from Mexico, Lopez Obrador could try to "clean" the image of the Republican President among Mexican-American voters in the United States.

The story of the summit between the two leaders began in April of last year. At the CEO Dialogue summit, López Obrador returned to his room at the Hyatt Regency in Mérida to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Wilbur Ross, with whom he discussed the construction of the Mayan Train and the Transisthmian, one of the largest infrastructure projects of the Mexican administration.

He asked Ross to explain to Trump that his decision was not to leave the country, because the situation in Mexico required full dedication to domestic politics.

AMLO concluded the conversation with Ross with a comment that amazed even his staff. He asked him to please explain to Trump that his decision as the new president of Mexico was to not make any foreign trips because the situation in Mexico required full dedication to domestic politics. "But I could make an exception," the President said.

The first plan for the summit was for Trump and AMLO to meet for the launch of the USMCA, but the long-delayed approval process in the U.S. Congress thwarted their plans. Instead, López Obrador received Jared Kushner and Robert Lighthizer at the National Palace in December 2019.

In the end, the White House pressured Saudi Arabia to accept an exception for Mexico, which in the end will have to reduce its production by only 100,000 barrels a day. In response to the support, AMLO's government allegedly promised Trump to mobilize the Mexican-American vote in the U.S. for the November elections in favor of the Republican Party. According to sources close to the Speaker, this is what Pelosi herself believes.

A photo-op with President López Obrador, a Latino leader with strong approval ratings in his country, could give a considerable boost to the campaign of President Donald Trump. The visit, according to the Mexican president himself, would take place three or four months before the elections in the United States.

Sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, reached out to LPO to explain that the meeting could also take place in a third country, within the context of an international forum. It is not clear, at least for the moment, if the health crisis will be completely controlled by that time.