MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will meet with his Chinese and Canadian counterparts on Thursday in San Francisco during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Mexico’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Lopez Obrador, who seldom travels outside Mexico, will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping before the inauguration of the APEC meetings and will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later that day.
The Mexican leader is scheduled to attend a dinner Thursday evening hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden before a previously announced meeting with his U.S. counterpart on Friday, the foreign ministry said in a press release.
Earlier Tuesday, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena told a press conference that Lopez Obrador and Xi would discuss trade as well as how to improve bilateral supply chains for what she said would be their first meeting in person.
“It’s a very important meeting,” said Barcena, noting that China had always wanted close relations with Mexico.
Barcena said Mexico’s economic relations with the United States would be at the heart of the U.S.-Mexico talks, pointing to billions of dollars in U.S. investment coming to Mexico.
Immigration and border security, as well as efforts to curb drug trafficking would also be prominent, she said, noting the two sides would look at how to better control the arrival of precursors from Asia used to make deadly opioid fentanyl.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes Fernandez; Additional reporting by Dave Graham and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Stephen Coates)
