After the complicated period of Donald Trump's mandate, which polluted relations between the United States and Mexico with the story of the border wall, Joe Biden will have waited before going to Mexico City.

The American president begins his first visit to Mexico, a fundamental partner of Washington, this Sunday with a stop in the border town of El Paso, in southern Texas, to silence the reproaches of his adversaries for never having set foot. on the 3,100 km of common border in two years of mandate.

He will travel to Mexico City on Monday to meet his Mexican counterpart Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador with whom he will participate in a tripartite summit with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday.

On the agenda, the nagging question of record migration and overdoses by the thousands in the United States due to Fentanyl, a synthetic drug produced by the Mexican cartels, but also the climate.

Migrants and energy independence

At a time when some 2.3 million arrests and deportation measures for undocumented immigrants have been taken in 2022, Joe Biden must show his firmness if he decides to stand for a second term.

Before going to El Paso, he has already announced a program that will allow up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to legally enter the United States each month.

This new quota applies to legal workers who have a sponsor in the United States, those entering illegally still risk deportation.

Climate change will also be on the agenda, with the two countries announcing at COP 27 a $48 billion renewable energy investment project in which Mexico has pledged to extend its gas reduction targets to greenhouse effect by 2030. Exploitation of lithium, relocation of electric vehicle assembly plants, construction of six solar energy plants on the Mexican side intend to be linked to the semiconductor cluster under construction in Arizona, as part of Washington's strategy to reduce its dependence on Asia for the manufacture of electronic components.

The war on drugs

The bilateral meeting will also be marked by the tragedy of Fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 times more potent than heroin, whose production and trafficking are controlled by Mexican cartels with chemical precursors from China, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Nearly two-thirds of the 108,000 overdose deaths recorded in the United States in 2021 involved synthetic opioids.

And the amount of fentanyl seized in 2022 alone is more than would be needed to kill the entire US population, according to the DEA.

The United States is seeking to “expand information sharing” with Mexico on precursors and to “strengthen prevention,” said the head of American diplomacy for Latin America, Brian Nichols.

And ahead of Biden's arrival, Mexico on Thursday captured Ovidio Guzman, one of the biggest meth traffickers in an operation that left 10 law enforcement officers dead and 19 among members of the Sinaloa gang.



The United States and Mexico announced in 2021 a change of approach in their anti-drug policy, focusing on the causes of trafficking after 15 years of purely military strategy.

Since 2006, 340,000 people have died violently in Mexico and thousands more have gone missing, without the cartels having been weakened.

In the midst of this bloodbath, the Mexican government has filed two lawsuits against the arms industry in the United States, which it accuses of fueling the violence of drug traffickers on its territory.

World

United States: Kevin McCarthy elected Speaker after a crazy night in the House

World

United States: Between humanity and firmness, Joe Biden's response to the migration crisis

  • World

  • Joe Biden

  • UNITED STATES

  • Mexico

  • Drug traffic