Guest Columnist – Biden and AMLO, The Odd Couple -

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Morgan Smith

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Imagine if someone called your people, “drug dealers, criminals and rapists.” Imagine someone repeatedly claiming that you would pay for the wall between your two countries.

Imagine someone dumping thousands of migrants on your border and expecting you to care for them. Imagine someone arrested a prominent citizen of yours (Salvador Cienfuegos, ex-defense Minister) any warning to you?

Despite all these insults, Mexico’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (better known as AMLO) remained a Trump supporter and has been reluctant to congratulate our new president, Joe Biden.

What does this mean for our two countries with so much in common and so in need of a strong working relationship between its leaders? Here is a list of some of the issues that need to be addressed.

On July 1, 2020 the United States Mexico Canada Agreement replaced NAFTA. As a result of NAFTA, Canada and Mexico became the US’s largest trade partners and helped create thousands of new jobs in all three countries. With leadership from the three leaders, the new agreement can do even more.

President Biden proposes to focus on manufacturing and bring jobs back from China. This could result in US-Mexico manufacturing joint ventures.

How will the two presidents work on immigration issues? For example, will AMLO continue posting his soldiers at the border wall at great cost to his government?

The Cienfuegos case has caused enormous damage to our drug interdiction partnership is in shambles. Although this happened under Trump’s watch, can Biden rebuild the necessary sense of cooperation?

Migrants will continue to come from countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador through Mexico and to the United States. What can the US and Mexico do together to help alleviate the violence, poverty and corruption in those countries?

There is a program former by Attorneys General in the western United States that provides training to the Mexican judicial system. Can this be expanded?

There is a huge lack of health services on the border, made more serious by COVID-19. Can a joint Mexico-US task force be formed to alleviate these issues?

The level of violence is enormous in Mexico. How can the two countries work together on this?

AMLO has rejected the idea of foreign investment in oil exploration in Mexico but PEMEX is losing money and lacks new technology and investment. Can this be changed?

AMLO is now recovering from COVID and is perhaps recognizing how deadly it has been for his country. Could he and Biden team up on a preventative program at least for border areas like El Paso and Juárez?

How to make the border more secure? Former Congresswoman Xochitl Torres Small introduced legislation to upgrade technology at ports of entry in order to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the US. Could the US and Mexico work together not only to stem the flow of drugs north but also the movement of weapons south into Mexico?

If Biden and AMLO can form a partnership based on respect there are many possibilities to improve conditions between our two countries but it all depends on the relationship between them.