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Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced on Monday that he will address security cooperation in the meeting he will have on Tuesday with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, but with “respect for sovereignty.”
“The security issue will surely also be addressed. The relationship we have with the (U.S.) Government is very good, always within the framework of respect for our sovereignty. Things have changed, before there was the so-called Merida Plan, then our sovereignty was violated,” he said.
The meeting López Obrador will have with Biden at the White House will focus on migration and the economy, said the Mexican President in his daily press conference.
The dialogue will take place amid growing pressure from Washington for Mexico to curb the flow of synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, and the progress of the lawsuit that the Mexican government filed against eleven U.S. weapon manufacturers last August.
The Mexican president affirmed that “it is no longer allowed” for the United States to order security operations such as “Fast and Furious,” which in 2009 involved the introduction of U.S. weapons to track drug traffickers.
“That is no longer allowed. There is cooperation, but the sovereignty of our country is respected, and President Biden has understood that. We must recognize that and be grateful for it. So, we have no problem, and I hope that the result will be good for our people,” he said.
The President recalled that in 2020 he enacted a reform to the National Security Law to restrict the presence of agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and other security agencies.
López Obrador acknowledged that Biden “is very respectful,” so U.S. agents still participate in security actions without directing the intelligence and operations themselves.
“They continue to intervene, but there is already a law, there is a legal framework that has been respected, which establishes how many agents can be in Mexico, the reports that they have to render to our country, and that they cannot act on their own, nor can they emit orders,” Lopez Obrador detailed.
The president said he would travel this morning on a commercial flight to Washington, where on Tuesday, he will hold a working breakfast with Vice President Kamala Harris before his bilateral meeting with Biden.
In the afternoon, he will pay tribute to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) for having been one of the “best” U.S. presidents and for having “respected” Mexico during the oil expropriation. Later he will participate in a ceremony in honor of Martin Luther King.
On Wednesday, before returning, he will meet with business people from Mexico and the United States.
