SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. It’s a great pleasure to be here with my colleague, my friend, Marcelo Ebrard, the foreign minister of Mexico. We have been working together very closely since almost day one of our administration, and it’s no surprise our countries – the United States and Mexico – have a partnership that dates back many, many years. We’re about to celebrate our – soon our 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations. But beyond that, we are drawn together by the profound connections between our countries, and a shared agenda in our own hemisphere and around the world.
Of course, we’re working together closely to deal with what is an unprecedented migration challenge throughout our hemisphere, and for that matter around the world, and the collaboration with Mexico is absolutely vital. Also vital to building, helping to build a better future and better opportunity for people throughout the Americas, which ultimately will have the greatest impact on migration in the longer run.
We come together to build strong North American economic competitiveness, including by building more resilient supply chains and dealing with other issues that are going to actually enhance the livelihoods of Mexicans and Americans alike. And from energy security to climate to so many other things, we’re working hand in hand every day.
Finally, one of the tasks but also opportunities that we have before us – and this is the focus of conversations today – is preparing for the Summit of the Americas coming up very soon in Los Angeles, the first Summit of the Americas since 1994 – which I actually was at the very first one – hosted in the United States. The United States and Mexico together will be working on shaping and sharing with all of our partners a strong agenda that ultimately has the goal of demonstrating that our democracies can deliver effectively for our people.
So I think this is a very timely moment to compare notes and to keep getting down to work.
Marcelo.
FOREIGN SECRETARY EBRARD: Thank you. Thank you, Antony. How are you? Good afternoon.
Thank you very much for having us this afternoon to have a meeting following the conversation past Friday between President Biden and President López Obrador. As mentioned, we have a very close ties. We have design about the future we share. It’s about democracy, prosperity in the Americas. We see the next summit as a very positive location to share those views about the future, and to start to work together not only North America, which already we have a very close ties, and we are working together; but with the rest of America, with everyone in the Americas.
And we are going to share in this location those views. Also competitiveness and prosperity between Mexico and the United States and the rest of Americas, and also about the global geopolitical and economic new situations, and geopolitical risks that we should pay attention that and share views how to solve the conflicts all over the world, and strengthen stability of the multilateral [inaudible] and United Nations strength in order to find peace solutions and prosperity for everyone.
So thank you very much, Antony. We are going to have a meeting, and we are going to follow the conversation between President Biden and President López Obrador in the next days. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Down to work. Thank you.