Lopez Obrador Holds Fraternal Talks with Joe Biden

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday described as very fraternal the telephone conversation he held on December 16 with US President-elect Joe Biden.

There is nothing to fear, relations are very good and nothing indicates or forebodes bad relations with Biden’s future government.

He revealed that a bilateral summit was not held in February as has been speculated, and that all of these issues are being handled by the Foreign Affairs Secretariat.

We are clear that we are seeking to establish friendly relations with the US Government, to which we are united by our proximity, more than 3,000 kilometers of border, 38 million Mexicans who live in the United States and one million US residents in Mexico, he said.

In his morning press conference at the National Palace, the president answered a question on the details of the dialogue with the US president-elect, to whom he belatedly acknowledged his triumph over Republican candidate Donald Trump.

With Biden, he added, we had a very fraternal, respectful conversation about migration, basically, a topic that will be addressed jointly.

Biden knows, he said, that people leave their place of origin because they need to, not for pleasure, hence the need to promote development as we have suggested, and we agreed to strengthen that policy.

We are going to work, he revealed, on the current plans for Central America and southern Mexico, within a policy of mutual respect for the peoples’ sovereignty and self-determination.

Regarding the wall, the issue was not discussed, as we did not do when the controversy was at its peak, because we did not consider it an unfriendly fact, he explained.