Economic relationship focus of renewed U.S.-Mexico talks

September 10, 2021 at 1:58 a.m.

by AAMER MADHANI THE ASSOCIATED PRES

Vice President Kamala Harris, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, speaks at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Vice President Kamala Harris, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, speaks at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

WASHINGTON -- The United States and Mexico restarted high-level economic talks Thursday after a four-year pause as top advisers to Presidents Joe Biden and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expressed eagerness to make headway on issues important to both nations such as infrastructure, trade and migration.

The talks were started by Biden in 2013 when he was vice president under Barack Obama but were halted under President Donald Trump, whose hard-line immigration policies complicated the United States' relationship with its top trade partner.

Vice President Kamala Harris opened Thursday's meeting with brief remarks in which she sought to emphasize the Biden administration's desire for warmer relations, referring to the Mexican delegation as "our friends, our partners." She also stressed the importance of improving relations in a moment when dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, climate change, cyber threats and supply chain disruptions are high priorities for both nations.

"We are very excited about this next stage of the relationship and partnership between the United States and Mexico," said Harris, who visited Mexico City in June for talks with Lopez Obrador. "Mexico is our closest neighbor ... and a strategic partner and one of our most important economic relationships. Mexico's economic stability is in the interest of the United States."

Lopez Obrador has faced criticism in recent weeks over images of Mexican immigration agents and National Guard troops having sometimes violent clashes with migrants in the southern state of Chiapas. The migration pressure in southern Mexico as well as at the U.S.-Mexico border led Lopez Obrador to renew his effort to persuade the United States to commit funding to social projects he has implemented in southern Mexico that he says could be expanded to Central America.

He said he sent a letter this week to Biden stressing that people participating in the programs should also be offered work visas in the United States, because Biden will need the labor force to carry out his ambitious infrastructure plan.

"Today's meeting is very important so that we initiate a new stage, because there has not been attention to the population that is obligated to migrate," Lopez Obrador said at his daily news conference. "There hasn't been in years. Nothing. Everything is contain. Everything is coercion. And that is not how social problems are resolved."

Information for this article was contributed by Christopher Sherman of The Associated Press.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard speaks at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard speaks at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard,, left, accompanied by, Vice President Kamala Harris, right, speaks at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard,, left, accompanied by, Vice President Kamala Harris, right, speaks at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Vice President Kamala Harris, center, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center right, speaks with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, left, at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Vice President Kamala Harris, center, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center right, speaks with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, left, at a U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue meeting in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

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