Mexico's President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador is set to meet with US President, Donald Trump for the first time, marking Obrador's first international travel since assuming office in 2018.
Trump and Obrador have, for a long time, held differing ideological views, with Obrador being a leftist, and Trump, a right-wing business mogul.
Trump, while seeking election in 2015 described Mexicans as "criminals," "rapists," and "drug dealers," statements which Obrador during his campaign, strongly condemned.
The icy relationship has seemingly thawed as Obrador and Trump have become "friends", according to Obrador whose government and the US government have jointly worked on issues like immigration and bilateral trade.
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Reports have it that the meeting, featuring Trump and Obrador, is to launch the novel United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that will supplant the old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The meeting has stirred some controversy in both Mexico and the United States, with critics saying that Obrador was lapping up every policy of Trump in a bid to avoid grating the United States.
Critics also say that the meeting will be more advantageous to Trump's reelection campaign.
Mexican journalist, Ricardo Raphael, said of the meeting, “There is no argument to deny that a visit by the Mexican president at this moment … implies an act of intervention that, albeit indirectly, will end up benefiting the campaign of Donald Trump."
Obrador has been asked to reject his invitation to the meeting which is deemed as a political stunt on Trump's side.
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