Mexican president: Trump meeting in Washington ‘very probable’ soon

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday that it’s “very probable” he’ll soon visit President Trump in Washington to formally kick off the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“It’s very probable that I’ll go to Washington and meet with President Trump and it will be soon. We are only waiting to define the characteristics of the meeting,” López Obrador told reporters at his daily press conference.

López Obrador added that his administration wants Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to participate in the meeting, scheduled around the USMCA’s entry into force.

Trump told a rally in Yuma, Ariz., on Tuesday that he expects López Obrador to visit him soon.

López Obrador’s opponents are wary of his relationship with Trump, as they perceive the Mexican president as kowtowing to his American counterpart, particularly on immigration.

Former Mexican Ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhán tweeted Wednesday that the proposed visit is “a big blunder and mistake; he will only be used as an electoral prop by Trump.”

This is a big blunder and mistake; he will only be used as an electoral prop by Trump… https://t.co/N2Cxd7qCnn

— Arturo Sarukhan (@Arturo_Sarukhan) June 24, 2020

And former Foreign Secretary Jorge Castañeda, under whose tenure bilateral relations soured after 9/11, told Reuters a López Obrador visit to Washington would be “a dumb idea.”

López Obrador, a nominally leftist populist who once published a book critical of Trump called “Listen, Trump,” has come closer to Trump since his inauguration in Mexico City in December 2018.

His trade envoys successfully concluded negotiations started under his predecessor to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with the USMCA.

But López Obrador’s domestic policies have been upended by his relationship with Trump, particularly as he was forced to use his newly created National Guard for immigration enforcement to quell the threat of U.S. tariffs on Mexican goods.

The USMCA is scheduled to take effect on July 1, and López Obrador said the visit could happen “immediately after” that date.