On November 18, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, would arrange an in-person meeting with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. This is the first of its kind in more than five years, a source in Ottawa said Tuesday.
Three other people familiar with the matter had said that final details are still being worked out, but that if the meeting goes ahead, it will most likely be held sometime next week in Washington.
The sources based in Ottawa and Mexico City they requested anonymity because the plans were not yet public.
Biden has held virtual meetings with the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, since he took office this year. The in-person summit coincides with political tensions over energy, trade and immigration.
Immigration on the southern border of the United States has reached record levels and Mexico wants its neighbor to invest more to stop it.
In addition to immigration, the agenda will include the fight against Covid-19 and competitiveness, the Ottawa source said.
They celebrate the summit of the Three Friends
The leaders of the three countries began holding what is informally known as the Three Friends summit in 2005 and met most of the years until 2016. The practice ended when former US president Donald Trump took office in January. of 2017.
The three countries are bound by the free trade agreement United States-Mexico-Canada (T-MEC) that governs some 1.5 trillion dollars of exchange in North America year.
Trudeau welcomed the electoral victory of Biden a year ago, but since then a series of old trade disputes over timber, pipelines and government procurement have flared up.
Canada is also unhappy with the proposed US tax credits for electric vehicles and says that if introduced it would respond appropriately. Ottawa says the move could hurt the highly integrated mainland auto industry.
In July, Canada and state United they expressed concern about Mexican energy policies.
The Home White and the office of Trudeau declined to comment. The office of Lopez Obrador did not respond to requests for comment. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, Edited in Spanish by Manuel Farías and Adriana Barrera).
Reuters
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