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Calderon to discuss key topics with Obama
President-elect Barack Obama will meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday, marking the incoming US president's first meeting with a foreign leader since he was elected in November.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:47 January 9, 2009
Washington: President-elect Barack Obama will meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday, marking the incoming US president's first meeting with a foreign leader since he was elected in November.
The talks in Washington are likely to cover issues such as Mexico's increasingly violent drug war, Mexican migration to the United States and the NAFTA trade agreement.
Tradition
An announcement by Obama's transition team described the meeting as part of a nearly three-decade tradition of US presidents meeting with the leader of the neighbouring nation prior to inauguration.
Shortly before his inauguration in January 1993, former President Bill Clinton met with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
In August 2000, President George W. Bush met in Dallas with Vicente Fox, who was then Mexico's president-elect. Bush at the time was governor of Texas and a presidential candidate.
Calderon, in power since the end of 2006, hopes to discuss security, immigration and economic issues with Obama, said Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa. Espinosa said the two would meet at noon on Monday.
One of Calderon's priorities is to press Obama to follow through on a US aid programme to help Mexico combat the drug trade.
The Mexican president is battling drug traffickers blamed for killing 5,650 people last year.
Calderon is also concerned about Obama's campaign promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.
The deal has greatly expanded Mexican trade with its powerful neighbour since it went into effect in 1994 but is seen by US unions as a cause of job losses in big industrial states like Ohio.
Obama, who takes over from Bush on January 20, has generally avoided weighing in publicly on foreign affairs during his transition to the White House, citing the principle that there is only one US president at a time.
When Bush hosted a summit of the leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in November, several leaders expressed an interest in sitting down with Obama but the president-elect decided it would not be appropriate to do so at that time.
Leaders from Mexico and Canada, the two closest US neighbours, are typically the earliest to hold meetings with new US presidents.
Restoring relations
Many in Mexico see Obama's election as a chance to restore good relations after Bush focused on the Middle East and failed to deliver a promised accord with Mexico on immigration.
The nearly 3,200km border with Mexico is the main entry point for illegal immigrants into the United States, which is already home to between 11 million to 12 million undocumented aliens, or one in every 20 workers in the country.
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