President Biden, Prime Minister Trudeau, President López Obrador meet at North American Leaders Summit

For the first time since 2016, the American president, Canadian prime minister, and Mexican president were in the same room when Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and Andrés Manuel López Obrador met in Washington Thursday. The three nations took a hiatus from meeting during the Trump presidency. The last “North American Leaders’ Summit” (NALS) meeting was between former President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Trudeau and former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Ottawa.

According to a White House background call on the meeting between President Biden, Trudeau, and Obrador, a senior Biden administration official said, “We seek to deepen and expand our economic cooperation and security partnership with both countries”.

Expected topics of conversation include:

• Economic cooperation
• COVID-19
• Climate change
• Migration management

“The President will also have separate bilateral meetings with each leader,” the official said.

The economic cooperation talks between Biden, Trudeau and López Obrador was expected to center around the supply chain issues seen in recent months. The issues have persisted despite the U.S and Mexico launching a bilateral supply chain working group “a couple of months ago”, according to the official. That official said the three leaders are going to “start a North American supply chain working group” with the goal of defining “essential industries to minimize future disruptions, including work in areas like critical minerals”.

When it comes to COVID-19, Biden, Trudeau and López Obrador were expected to talk about vaccine distribution. The U.S. has already shared millions of doses with Mexico and Canada.

“Their leaders are going to reach an agreement whereby Canada and Mexico are going to share some of the vaccines that were part of a swap, and they’re going to share those with the region,” the official said. This includes poorer countries that are on the wrong end of a major disparity in vaccine availability.

On climate change, Trudeau has an issue with a provision in the proposed Build Back Better Act. The provision, which provides tax credits for buying electric vehicles, would only apply to vehicles made in the U.S. starting in 2027. Trudeau says that’s a violation of the United States-Mexico-Canada meeting.

Biden and Trudeau have also expressed frustration that López Obrador has failed to get on board with global efforts to curb climate emissions. He skipped the COP26 Climate Change Conference earlier this month.

López Obrador was expected to focus on the U.S.-Mexico border during Thursday’s meetings. The two countries are still negotiating the court-ordered re-implementation of the Remain in Mexico policy, which forced asylum seekers to wait out their U.S. asylum process in Mexico. López Obrador is also looking for the U.S. to expand its temporary work visa program to counteract the country’s current labor shortage, as well as to firm up America’s development funds for the Northern Triangle.