Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador urged his American counterpart Joe Biden at the beginning of a bilateral summit in Mexico City to end the United States' "disdain" for Latin America. According to Agence France-Presse, López Obrador told reporters while addressing Biden, "It is time to end this neglect, this abandonment, this disdain for Latin America and the Caribbean, which contradicts the good neighbor policy initiated by the giant of freedom, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt." He added, "Mr. President Biden, you hold the key to greatly enhancing relations between all countries of the Americas."
Biden responded to his host by stating that "only over the last fifteen years we have spent billions of dollars in the Western Hemisphere, tens of billions of dollars," emphasizing that "the United States provides more foreign aid than all other countries combined." Biden added, "Unfortunately, our responsibility does not stop at the borders of the Western Hemisphere," as it also includes "Central Europe, Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia." Biden is visiting Mexico to attend the "Three Amigos" summit, which will also include Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This is Biden's first official visit to Mexico nearly two years after taking office.
