Jill Biden arrives at Mexico City International Airport

Jill Bidenthe first lady of the United States, arrived this Sunday afternoon at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM), hours before her husband, President Joe Biden, also arrived in the country’s capital.

Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller and Esperanza Salazar, wife of the United States ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, were in charge of receiving Jill Biden at the AICM.

The US president’s wife arrived in Mexico accompanied by John Kerry, the United States’ special envoy for climate.

Before his visit to Mexico, President Joe Biden traveled the border, for the first time since he took office, addressing one of the most politically charged issues in the country, which registers record numbers in detentions of undocumented migrants.

After his visit to step, texasBiden will travel to Mexico City to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with whom he will also speak about immigration in the framework of the X Summit of North American Leaders.

In a country where migration is often electoral spoils, the issue could become a thorn in Biden’s side if he decides to seek re-election in 2024.

Before traveling to Stepthe US president announced a migration program limited to four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, plunged into deep crisis, although the incessant flow includes several other nations.

The monthly entry of up to 30,000 people will be allowed for two years, hardly a palliative, acknowledges Biden, who blames the Republicans for blocking a more ambitious plan. arranged with MexicoOn the other hand, the program reinforces the expulsions of those who enter illegally.

The two-way meeting between Biden y Lopez Obrador It will also be marked by the trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 times more powerful than heroin, whose production and sale are controlled by Mexican cartels with chemical precursors from China, according to the DEA, the US drug agency.

Nearly two-thirds of the 108,000 overdose deaths in the United States in 2021 involved synthetic opioids. And in 2022 alone, more fentanyl was seized than would be needed to kill the entire population of the United States, the agency says.

For this reason, Biden seeks to “expand the exchange of information” with Mexico on precursors and “strengthen prevention,” said the head of US diplomacy for Latin America, Brian Nichols.

At the table will also be the climate changeafter the announcement at COP27 of a joint renewable energy project involving 48,000 million dollars of investment and in which Mexico promised to expand its greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030.

(With information from AFP.)

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