MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s president said Thursday that an upcoming meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump was a matter of economic necessity, even as diplomats questioned the wisdom of making his first visit abroad to a widely vilified man. by Mexicans.
The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, speaks during a press conference in Mexico City, Mexico, June 24, 2020. The Presidency / Brochure of Mexico through REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS: THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY THIRD PARTIES. NO SALES. NO FILES
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will visit Trump in Washington to announce a new trade agreement four years after his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, was ridiculed for hosting the American during the 2016 U.S. presidential election race.
Mexico sends 80% of its exports to the United States market and receives billions of dollars in remittances from some 35 million people of Mexican origin in the United States. Trump has used both as leverage to pressure Mexico to curb illegal immigration.
López Obrador, who suggested that the meeting could take place in early July, has tried hard to stay on good terms.
“It is a friendly relationship, and it is an indispensable economic and commercial relationship,” López Obrador said at a regular press conference. “That’s what my trip to the United States is about.”
López Obrador, who has not yet traveled outside of Mexico since he took office 19 months ago, proposed the idea of a June or July meeting with Trump two months ago, but then suggested that it would be difficult in person.
That changed this week when Trump announced that he hoped to meet with the Mexican president soon.
The idea that he shared a scenario with Trump, who criticized Mexican migrants as rapists and drug traffickers in his 2015-16 election campaign and promised to make Mexico pay for his planned border wall, raises concerns among Mexican diplomats.
Agustín Gutiérrez, the husband of López Obrador’s ambassador to Washington, Martha Bárcena, and himself a former Mexican ambassador, said in an opinion piece on Thursday that the visit risked repeating the “disaster” of the Peña Nieto meeting in 2016 .
“What will happen if the press asks Trump, sitting next to the Mexican president in the Oval Office, if Mexico will pay for the wall?” Gutiérrez wrote in the Milenio newspaper.
ELECTORAL BENEFIT
Critics say the planned meeting will also give Trump a platform to polish his credentials with Hispanic voters for his reelection bid in November.
“I don’t think it will help Trump much, but I think he will certainly use it,” said Andrés Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister.
López Obrador has promised to remain neutral in the US elections and says his visit has nothing to do with it.
He wants to celebrate the start of the trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico on July 1 and thank Trump for the medical support of the United States during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Mexican government expects Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to join the meeting, but it is unclear if he will.
A Canadian government source said Trudeau would consider any invitation and would make health and safety the primary consideration when making any decision to attend during the pandemic.
Under federal health regulations, Trudeau currently faces 14 days in quarantine upon returning to Canada if he leaves the country.
It seems unlikely that López Obrador’s trip is popular at home.
An online poll conducted on June 20 by pollster Consulta Mitofsky showed that 68% of Mexicans had a negative opinion of Trump. The Mexican president evidently felt that failing to meet Trump was the riskier of the two options, said Roy Campos, Mitofsky’s boss.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, Economy Minister Graciela Márquez, and Presidential Cabinet Chief Alfonso Romo will join López Obrador, who is flying commercial even though there are currently no direct flights to Washington due to the pandemic.
Report by Dave Graham; Additional reports by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Daniel Flynn and Lisa Shumaker edition
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