墨西哥城-白宫周二宣布了美国、墨西哥和加拿大之间的新协议，几个小时后，这些国家的领导人——所谓的“三个朋友”——将在墨西哥城举行三方会谈。
但也许最值得注意的是迄今为止所缺少的——没有关于芬太尼的新承诺，芬太尼是一种强大的合成阿片类药物，被走私入境来自墨西哥的边境尽管白宫表示，乔·拜登总统将向墨西哥总统安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔总统提出具体要求。
相反，白宫表示，这三个国家已承诺“加强对芬太尼和其他合成药物非法制造中所用化学品的信息共享”——这与任何新的执法行动、制裁或其他旨在扰乱毒品卡特尔芬太尼生产和贩运的活动相去甚远。
北美领导人峰会将拜登、洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔和加拿大总理贾斯廷·特鲁多聚集在一起，进行为期两天的会谈边境安全以及合法和非法的移民问题。
在移民问题上，白宫表示，这三个国家已经同意采取小步骤，努力鼓励移民申请合法身份，而不是将他们的生命交给走私者，然后前往北方。但这些措施——包括为移民提供“简化法律途径”的新联合在线平台，由私营部门资助并“分享最佳实践”的墨西哥南部新法律中心——与问题的规模相比也同样微不足道。
更引人注目的是增加经济合作的新承诺——在半导体和关键矿产等关键领域，以及供应链和高级劳动力培训方面开展合作。虽然尚未宣布任何财政承诺，但这些协议包括一个关于半导体的内阁级峰会，绘制北美大陆的矿产资源图，以及促进教育投资。
拜登和洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔在周一的一对一会谈中吹嘘了这种合作，墨西哥总统形容他的美国对手是一位“人文主义”和“有远见”的领导人，并呼吁美国在该地区进行新的投资。
洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔在记者面前对拜登说:“从你开始，不会有其他领导人能够实施这项事业。”。“你手里握着开启和实质性改善美洲大陆所有国家之间关系的钥匙。”
拜登曾多次谈到重建美国制造业和将供应链转移到离家更近的地方的重要性，他同意一个观点，即告诉洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔:“我们正处于一个转折点，我们在未来几年的所作所为将决定世界在未来二十年、三十年、四十年的样子。”
但拜登指出，美国已经提供了比任何其他国家都多的外国援助，“不幸的是，我们的责任并不仅限于西半球。”
在能源问题上也有一个主要的、持续的争议。洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔已经采取措施排斥外国公司，尤其是在可再生能源领域，转而支持墨西哥国有石油公司墨西哥国家石油公司。这引发了美国和加拿大在7月份根据美国管理认证协会提出正式申诉，这是一项特朗普时代三国之间的自由贸易协定，取代了1994年的北美自由贸易协定。
周二，在三方会谈之前，白宫不仅没有提及这一争端，还表示，三国已经认识到“采取快速、协调和雄心勃勃的措施来建设清洁能源经济和应对气候危机的紧迫性”，同时还列出了另一系列承诺，从减少甲烷排放和食物浪费到为公共汽车供电，以及扩大节能和电动汽车充电器。
What the US, Mexico and Canada agreed on ahead of 'Three Amigos' summit
MEXICO CITY -- The White House announced new agreements between the United States, Mexico and Canada on Tuesday, just hours before the countries' leaders -- the so-called "Three Amigos" -- meet for trilateral talks in Mexico City.
But perhaps most notable was what's missing so far -- there was no fresh commitment on fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is smuggled across the border from Mexico, even after the White House said President Joe Biden would make specific asks of his Mexican counterpart, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Instead, the White House said the three countries have committed to "increased information sharing on chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs" -- a far cry from any new law enforcement operations, sanctions or other activity to disrupt fentanyl production and trafficking by drug cartels.
The North American Leaders' Summit brings together Biden, Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for two days of talks, with border security and migration -- both legal and illegal -- as key topics.
On migration, the White House said the three countries have agreed to take small steps to try to encourage migrants to apply for legal status, rather than put their lives in the hands of smugglers and make the journey north. But those steps -- including a new joint platform online to give migrants "streamlined access to legal pathways," a new legal center in southern Mexico backed by private sector funding and "sharing best practices" -- are similarly meager given the scale of the issue.
More notable were the fresh commitments to increase economic cooperation -- working together on key sectors, such as semiconductors and critical minerals, as well as on supply chains and advanced workforce training. While no financial commitments have been announced yet, those agreements include a cabinet-level summit on semiconductors, mapping mineral resources across the North American continent and promoting educational investment.
Both Biden and Lopez Obrador boasted that kind of cooperation during a one-on-one meeting on Monday, with the Mexican president describing his American counterpart as a "humanistic" and "visionary" leader and calling for new U.S. investment in the region.
"There would be no other leader that could implement this enterprise -- beginning with you," Lopez Obrador said to Biden in front of reporters. "You hold the key in your hand to open and to substantially improve the relationship among all the countries of the American continent."
Biden, who has repeatedly talked about the importance of rebuilding U.S. manufacturing and moving supply chains closer to home, agreed up to a point -- telling Lopez Obrador: "We're at one of those inflection points where what we do in the next several years is going to determine what the world looks like in the next two, three, four decades."
But Biden noted that the U.S. already provides more foreign aid than any other country and, "unfortunately, our responsibility just doesn't end in the Western Hemisphere."
There's also a major, ongoing dispute over energy. Lopez Obrador has taken steps to box out foreign companies, especially in the renewable space, and instead prop up Mexico's state-owned oil firm, Pemex. That triggered the U.S. and Canada to file a formal complaint in July under USMCA, a Trump-era free trade deal between the three countries that replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.
Not only did the White House make no mention of this dispute on Tuesday ahead of the trilateral talks, it said the three countries have recognized "the urgency for rapid, coordinated, and ambitious measures to build clean energy economies and respond to the climate crisis," alongside another list of commitments, from reducing methane emissions and food waste to electrifying public buses and expanding conservation and electric vehicle chargers.
