One of the most important diplomatic decisions by President Joe Biden at the gathering this week of North American leaders might have been his choice of airport.
One of the most important diplomatic decisions by President Joe Biden at the gathering this week of North American leaders might have been his choice of airport.
Biden arrived in Mexico City on Sunday evening via Mexico’s newest hub, the Felipe Angeles International Airport, a prized project by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The hub was christened last year with much fanfare, though it’s located more than an hour’s drive north of the city center, has few flights and until recently lacked consistent drinking water.
Biden and López Obrador, whose relationship is transactional at best and absent the warmth and camaraderie Biden has with other world leaders, shook hands and walked together down a long red carpet on the tarmac, flanked by soldiers. The two then took the long drive into the city center together.
Along with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who arrives on Monday, the trio will spend the next two days discussing climate change, manufacturing, trade, the economy and the potential global clout of a more collaborative North America.
“This gathering will deepen our coordination and advance our shared priorities for North America,” Biden tweeted on Sunday after his arrival.
Migration will also be discussed, but ahead of the summit Biden announced a major U.S.-Mexico border policy shift, with Mexico’s blessing, that will result in the United States sending 30,000 migrants from four other countries per month back across the border. The U.S. will accept 30,000 people per month from the four nations — Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela — for two years and offer the ability to work legally.
On Sunday, Biden’s spent roughly four hours in El Paso, Texas, his first trip to the border as president and the longest he’s spent along the U.S-Mexico line. The day was highly controlled and seemed designed to showcase a smooth operation to process migrants entering legally, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely treat those who have entered illegally, creating a counter-narrative to Republicans’ claims of a crisis situation equivalent to an open border.
But it was likely do little to quell critics from both sides, including immigrant advocates who accuse the Democratic president of establishing cruel policies not unlike those of his hard-line predecessor, Donald Trump, a Republican.
