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President Donald Trump, who has denigrated Mexican migrants and threatened the U.S. ally with crippling tariffs, welcomed President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the White House on Wednesday, referred to as him a cherished companion and claimed the nations’ financial and safety ties have been reaching new heights.
Trump’s heat phrases have been in stark distinction to the times when he referred to as Mexicans “rapists” and railed in opposition to migrants getting into the United States illegally. López Obrador had cordial phrases for Trump, too, saying that whereas they’ve disagreed, it was higher to seek out frequent floor and keep away from slinging insults.
The assembly was billed as a celebration of financial ties and the brand new U.S.-Mexico-Canada commerce settlement, however critics in Mexico nervous López Obrador was getting used as a political pawn to bolster the Trump marketing campaign and his “America first,” anti-illegal migration agenda. Despite the verbal backslapping within the Rose Garden, thorny points — from immigration to funding — stay.
Trump has dialed again his harsh phrases since López Obrador took workplace a 12 months and a half in the past. And López Obrador signaled he wished to place the insults prior to now.
“As in the best times of our political relations, during my term as president of Mexico, instead of insults toward me and more importantly against my country, we have received from you understanding and respect,” López Obrador mentioned.
Their relationship is an odd bromance: López Obrador is a veteran leftist and Trump tacks proper.
“Some thought that our ideological differences would have led us inevitably to confrontation,” López Obrador mentioned. “Fortunately, this bad omen didn’t materialize and I consider that in the future there will be no need to break our good political relations, nor the friendship between our governments.”
Later, Lopez Obrador mentioned: “The forecasts failed. We didn’t fight. We are friends, and we’re going to keep being friends.”
Trump their friendship developed “against all odds.”
Trump’s nationwide safety adviser Robert O’Brien mentioned the 2 leaders have “really hit it off” and exchanged present baseball bats throughout their assembly. Trump signed and gave López Obrador a customized Louisville Slugger, and the Mexican president gave the president a bat manufactured by indigenous folks in southern Mexico, O’Brien mentioned on Fox Business Network’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
The two signed a declaration highlighting U.S.-Mexico relations and the USMCA. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau determined to not come to Washington to rejoice the settlement, citing scheduling conflicts.
Trump and López Obrador additionally pledged to cooperate in responding to the coronavirus, which has rocked each nations. Since March 2020, motion throughout the border has been restricted to important journey whereas permitting the stream of items and providers. Last 12 months, Mexico turned the most important items buying and selling companion of the United States.
López Obrador arrived on the White House after morning stops on the Lincoln Memorial and a statue of Benito Juarez, a former Mexican president and nationwide hero. Trump and a army honor guard greeted him on the White House. The two posed for footage and Trump flashed a thumb’s up. They additionally have been to have dinner on the White House with about 20 U.S. and Mexican enterprise leaders, together with Carlos Slim, one of the richest males on the earth.
With the U.S. trying to cut back its dependence on China for elements and provides, Mexico is well-positioned to step into the void, although U.S. companies have seen some latest actions taken by the Mexican authorities as dangerous to U.S. buyers and say they undermine the framework of the USMCA. López Obrador didn’t publicly tackle U.S. enterprise’ issues.
“If there is not a better investment climate for both foreign and domestic private investment, it will be very difficult to use the opportunity of USMCA and the drift between China and the United States to our advantage,” Geronimo Gutierrez, who was Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. in 2017 and 2018, mentioned throughout a digital occasion hosted by the Wilson Center.
With no conferences deliberate with former Vice President Joe Biden, López Obrador seemingly is banking that Trump will win a second time period. The Democratic Party chairman, Tom Perez, recalled Trump’s insults of Mexicans and mentioned the president was now attempting to take credit score for a commerce deal that Democrats in Congress helped make attainable.
“Latino communities, immigrants, and the American people deserve a president with the empathy and experience to lead us forward, not a demagogue who cheers on bigotry from the White House,” Perez mentioned, urging voters to elect Biden.
When he arrived on the White House, López Obrador and Trump didn’t shake palms as would have been customary earlier than the pandemic. White House spokesman Judd Deere mentioned all members of the Mexican touring delegation have been examined for the virus. The presidents sat at tables positioned many toes aside to signal their joint assertion.
López Obrador likes to level out that Trump helped Mexico attain a cope with different oil-producing nations to chop manufacturing and aided Mexico in acquiring extra ventilators to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Both presidents discuss a blossoming friendship that appears to stem from their pursuit of nationalist agendas.
Many Mexicans, nonetheless, stay cautious of Trump, whose denunciations are supposed to rally his most loyal supporters. Trump has threatened tariffs to strong-arm Mexico into enjoying an uncomfortable position in U.S. immigration coverage and insisted that Mexico can pay for a border wall meant to maintain migrants out of the U.S.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany wouldn’t get into element about what the 2 presidents mentioned about immigration. Mexico deployed 27,000 troops to the border to assist stem the tide of unlawful immigrants from Central American.
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Associated Press author Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
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