:format(png):focal(3251x1856:3261x1846)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gfrmedia/OS5D2I73CVFRXKCPKDHP5GB6HU.jpg)
Washington – President Joe Biden first spoke to foreign rulers in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the United States on Friday, calling on Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a time of tension in Washington’s ties. with its neighbors in North America.
Biden spoke to López Obrador days after the president of Mexico accused the US anti-drug agency (DEA, for its acronym in English) for inventing drug trafficking charges against General Salvador Cienfuegos, former Defense Minister.
While Mexico has maintained its promise to prevent the transit of large contingents of Central American migrants to the United States border, there was no shortage of friction points between the two countries.
Mexico demanded the return of Cienfuegos after he was arrested in Los Angeles in October and threatened to restrict the activities of US agents in the Latin American country if he was not returned. Federal prosecutors in the United States agreed to drop the charges and return Cienfuegos to Mexico.
In any case, the Mexican Congress passed a law restricting the activities of foreign agents and waiving their immunity, while the government published the federal charges filed against Cienfuegos, which was immediately acquitted by the Attorney General.
“We spoke with President Biden, who was kind and respectful. We cover issues related to migration, # COVID19 and collaboration for development and wellbeing. Everything indicates that relationships will be good for the good of our peoples and nations “Lopez Obrador noted on Facebook.
Biden also spoke with Trudeau, who this week publicly expressed dissatisfaction with a decision by the new president, who, in one of his first acts as president, issued an executive order to suspend construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial project was planned to transport about 800,000 barrels of oil per day from the Alberta province’s tar sands to the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico, through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.
In their private conversation, Biden told Trudeau that the executive order fulfilled a campaign commitment to halt construction of the pipeline, a senior Canadian official told The Associated Press, which asked for anonymity so he could comment on the pipeline. Private conversation between rulers.
The White House said in a statement that Biden acknowledged Trudeau’s annoyance over the Keystone decision.
The Canadian minister told reporters ahead of Friday’s call that he would not allow his disagreements with Biden over the project to become a source of tension in Washington-Ottawa relations.
“There will not always be a perfect alignment with the United States,” said Trudeau. “It’s the case with every president, but we find ourselves in a situation where we are much more aligned in terms of values and focus. I look forward to working with President Biden. “
Biden signed the executive order to halt construction of the pipeline hours after assuming the presidency.
“Maintaining the license for the Keystone XL pipeline would be against the economic and climate requirements of my government,” Biden said in his executive order.
Critics say the growing operations are increasing greenhouse gas emissions and threatening Alberta’s rivers and forests. On the American side, environmentalists said they were concerned that the pipeline – which would cross Ogalla Aquifer, one of the world’s largest underground freshwater reservoirs, was too risky.
In turn, those promoting it say it would create thousands of jobs in both countries.
The project was proposed in 2008 and symbolizes the tensions between economic development and the reduction of fossil fuel emissions that cause climate change. President Barack Obama’s administration has rejected it, but President Donald Trump has reactivated it and strongly supported it. Construction had already started.
Biden and Trudeau also discussed the possibility that Canada will receive the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Pharmaceutical’s factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, according to a second senior Canadian official who asked for anonymity so he could speak on a private conversation.
Canada receives all of its doses of Pfizer from a company facility in Puurs, Belgium, but the drug manufacturer has informed the Canadian government that it will not be sending doses to it next week and will receive 50% less than expected in the next three weeks. . Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford has publicly asked Biden to share a million doses produced at the Pfizer plant in Michigan.
Washington has an agreement with Pfizer under which the first 100 million doses of the nationally produced vaccine will be owned by the US government for distribution in the United States. Canadian government procurement minister Anina Anand has said the doses produced at the Michigan plant are for distribution in the United States.
The two rulers also spoke extensively on trade, defense and climate issues. Trudeau also brought up the cases of two Canadians imprisoned in China, apparently in retaliation for the arrest of a senior Huawei executive held in Canada on the basis of a US extradition request, the prime minister’s office said.