The President of Mexico calls on Biden to end Washington's "contempt" for Latin America

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called on his US counterpart, Joe Biden, at the start of a bilateral summit in Mexico City on Monday, for the United States to end its "contempt" for Latin America.

"The time has come to end this oblivion, this abandonment, this disdain for Latin America and the Caribbean, which runs counter to the good-neighborly policy launched by the giant of freedom President Franklin Delano Roosevelt," Lopez Obrador said, addressing Biden in front of reporters.

He added, "President Biden, you hold the key to opening and significantly improving relations between all countries of the American continent."

Biden responded to his host by saying that "only during the past 15 years have we spent billions of dollars in the Western Hemisphere, tens of billions of dollars," stressing that "the United States provides more foreign aid than all other countries combined."

"Unfortunately, our responsibility does not stop at the borders of the Western Hemisphere," Biden added, as it includes "Central Europe, Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia."

The Mexican president had announced that he wanted to address with Biden the "roots of the immigration problem", as well as the investments Mexico made in El Salvador and Honduras to get those wishing to emigrate to change their minds.

And Biden is visiting Mexico to attend the "three friends" summit, which will be joined by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

This is his first official visit to Mexico, nearly two years after taking office.

Earlier Sunday, Biden headed to the border between the United States and Mexico for the first time since assuming the presidency, to visit El Paso, the transit point in Texas that is at the center of the controversy over irregular immigration and drug trafficking.

In addition to the thorny immigration file, Biden's visit to Mexico is overshadowed by the tragedy of the industrial drug fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin, and is supervised by Mexican "cartels" based on chemical components imported from China, according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency.