The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, invited his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to visit Mexico this Thursday, during the meeting they held in San Francisco (USA) and which focused on cooperation to stop drug trafficking. fentanyl.
At the end of the meeting, held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC, in English), the Mexican Foreign Ministry reported on social networks that López Obrador invited Xi to visit Mexico to learn about the Sonora Plan for lithium exploitation. and renewable energies, as well as the Interoceanic Corridor project of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that Mexico and China “have 51 years of solid diplomatic relations and cooperate on essential issues, such as combating trafficking in chemical precursors of synthetic drugs.”
He added that both countries They are strengthening their commercial relations and detailed that López Obrador thanked Xi for the help sent to address the devastation caused by the impact of Hurricane Otis in the state of Guerrero.
Mexican government sources informed EFE that a large part of the meeting would focus on fentanyl trafficking, a phenomenon that has strained Mexico’s relations with both China and the United States.
According to the US, Mexican cartels use chemical precursors from China to manufacture this synthetic opioid, fifty times more powerful than heroin, and subsequently sell it illegally in the United States, where More than 70,000 people died last year from the consumption of this substance.
López Obrador, who has denied that fentanyl is manufactured in his country, sent a letter to Xi last April asking him to cooperate in the fight against this drug, but China then ignored it.
In the meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden on Wednesday in San Francisco, the United States and China finally agreed to impose greater controls on the import of those chemical precursors from the Asian giant that are used to manufacture fentanyl.
Mexican Government sources stressed this Thursday that “fighting the trafficking of illicit substances such as fentanyl and its precursors is essential for Mexico.”
“Mexico will seek to strengthen a dialogue mechanism with Beijing, which has the potential to substantially increase cooperation and information sharing to combat trafficking of illicit substances and regulate their precursors institutionally,” they added.
At the beginning of the meeting between Xi and López Obrador, the first between them, the president of China congratulated the Mexican for the “progress” of the Latin American country and expressed “condolences” for the devastation of Hurricane Otis.
