AS I commented recently in these pages (“Mexico’s welfare plan stuns the UN,” November 13), Mexico’s Amlo and his team are determined to punch above their weight in the international arena. 

They continue to push the World Welfare Plan proposed on November 9: Mexican diplomats have engaged with UN delegations from over 100 countries and will shortly be presenting the plan in more detail to the general assembly. 

Just over a week later Amlo was at it again, this time meeting with Joe Biden and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau in Washington on November 18 at the North American summit of the three members of the continental trade agreement.

Such meetings were held every couple of years until 2016 but were abandoned by Donald Trump. Now all three parties are interested in closer co-operation. 

Amlo went to Washington with a clear agenda which was reflected in the discussions. It should be noted that he doesn’t fly in a luxury presidential airliner with dozens of flunkeys and security staff, but goes economy class on an ordinary commercial flight, and in this case was accompanied by just five members of his cabinet. 

Normal diplomatic protocol was of course observed in a full day of private and public meetings, and a cursory view of the proceedings might leave an impression of bland normality.

But such an impression would be profoundly mistaken. Amlo insisted — as he has in previous meetings with both Trump and Biden — both on the painful history of bilateral relations (with the US seizing more than half of Mexico’s original territory) and on positive episodes like the friendship between Abraham Lincoln and Benito Juarez in the 1860s and between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lazaro Cardenas in the 1930s. 

He hinted that it was time for another “Good Neighbour Policy” like that promoted by Roosevelt. Biden responded — and this had a powerful impact on the audience — that “it’s no longer a Good Neighbour Policy, we’re absolutely equal, we’re equal countries,” with a relationship based on mutual respect. 

How this equality translates into practice is another matter, but it’s a very important declaration.

Issues of public health and security were high on the agenda, with deaths from Covid in all three countries and gang violence being an ongoing problem, especially in Mexico. 

But Amlo pointedly mentioned a US (and Canadian) health problem, the 100,000 annual deaths from opioids (heroin) as a concern. 

On criminal violence, he recognised it as an ongoing problem in Mexico, but pointed out that arms smuggling from the US was a major contributing factor.

Indeed, Mexico has presented a lawsuit in a Massachusetts court against US arms manufacturers for criminal negligence causing bloodshed south of the border. 

Previously, the onus would have been on Mexico to fight drug cartels at Washington’s urging and to accept armed US agents on its territory, so this is quite a turnaround.

The official final declaration of course includes platitudes about “building back better together,” enterprise, democracy and diversity. 

But it also mentions explicitly — no less than four times — the need to promote small and medium enterprises and their participation in the benefits of trade. 

There is also repeated emphasis on labour rights and standards: “A modern and resilient North American economy has no place for goods manufactured with forced labour” and child labour and any kind of forced labour must be eliminated. 

Environmental standards and a coordinated approach to the climate crisis, with a clear definition of what are and are not essential industries, also feature in the declaration. 

Migration is a key issue for all three countries, demanding a joint response based on preventing human trafficking, providing access to legal routes, protecting human rights and improving conditions in the countries of origin so people do not feel obliged to leave. 

Effective aid to the poor in Central America has been a key point of Amlo’s negotiations with Washington for some time now.

Amlo also repeated explicitly in the final press conference his request to Biden to keep his promise to legalise the situation of 11 million undocumented Mexican migrants in the US, a difficult issue in the US Congress. 

The Washington summit produced a hard-hitting document which, while maintaining diplomatic norms, confronts the main issues head-on, largely thanks to Amlo. 

Less than a fortnight later, beginning on November 30, Mexico was hosting the 7th Plenary of the Puebla Group of progressive Latin American leaders including Lula and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Alberto Fernandez of Argentina, Luis Arce of Bolivia and others. 

They were all celebrating the spectacular election victory of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, a success which greatly strengthens their movement and to which, behind the scenes, Mexico has no doubt contributed in the sense of helping to prevent a right-wing coup or imperialist intervention.

David Raby is a retired academic and independent researcher on Latin America. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @DLRaby.