When Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sat across from Joe Biden, the urge to taunt him about high gasoline prices in the United States was just too strong.
“While we waited for prices to go down, we have allowed Americans who live close to the border to fill their tanks with gas on the Mexican side at lower prices,” Lopez Obrador said.
Gasoline in Mexico is indeed sold at about 1 dollar less than in the U.S., where it averages $4.66 a gallon. He also pointed out that ever since the beginning of the energy crisis, Mexico has sent 72 percent of its crude oil and fuel oil exports to U.S. refineries.
The meeting between the two heads of state comes a month after López Obrador angered Washington by boycotting a summit meant to highlight how the climate between the nations had relaxed, even though concerns over immigration, trade and the flow of fentanyl across the U.S. southwestern border persist.
In spite of tensions, however, López Obrador expressed optimism about relations between the two American nations, telling Biden that “we trust you because you respect our sovereignty. Always count on our support and solidarity.”
Mexico is the U.S.’s second largest trading partner, and the two states are bound together by common culture and geography.
However, AMLO’s remark about Mexican gas did not go unnoticed and was “a clear attempt to show the division between Mexican and U.S. energy policy,” as Jason Marczak, Latin American scholar at the Atlantic Council, told us.
#UltimaHora | Arriba el presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador a la Casa Blanca, en #EstadosUnidos, acompañado de Beatriz Gutiérrez Muller y el canciller Marcelo Ebrard. pic.twitter.com/jjuqJI11On
— Diario de Tabasco (@DiarioDeTabasco) July 12, 2022
Mr. López Obrador has in fact prioritized the government-owned oil industry, favoring fossil fuel development over renewable energy. A very different approach than Biden’s green push.
Biden, who, like Trump, has relied heavily on Mexico to act as a buffer over the migration that has swept across the hemisphere, is facing intense pressure as the midterm elections scheduled for November approach. López Obrador’s government has adapted, detaining nearly twice as many migrants in the first four months of 2022 as in the same period last year.
At the same time, however, the United States still attracts many Mexicans, and for the first time since 2019, the number of migrants has risen again. Mexicans now make up the largest group of people stranded at the U.S. Southwest border, with more than 560,000 detained in the first eight months of the year-a 35 percent increase over the same period in 2021.
