Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena Before Their Meeting

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's truly a pleasure to have my colleague and my friend -

FOREIGN SECRETARY BÁRCENA: Thank you.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: - Alicia Bárcena here, welcome you back to the State Department. I want to say first to you what an extraordinary colleague you've been and continue to be in your capacity as foreign secretary, but also anticipating the future, because I know you're going to take over the environmental portfolio with the new government and to be responsible for one of the truly existential issues of our time. No one is better suited to do that. So we really look forward to continuing collaboration, but we have a lot to do in this moment and in the months ahead.

I want to congratulate as well the people of Mexico for the very successful election, and of course President-elect Sheinbaum. We look very much forward to working with her administration, but we continue to work as closely as possible with President López Obrador and his administration. And I have to say from our perspective, the partnership has never been better, it's never been stronger, it's never produced better results for both Mexicans and Americans on the many issues that join us. No two countries have the same intertwined destinies as our two countries do. Our - no two countries, I think, have the same impact on each other's lives as our two countries.

And so when we have challenging issues, we're working on them together. Irregular migration is obviously one of the most important examples, and there, thanks to the strong steps that Mexico has taken, the strong leadership that both President Biden and President López Obrador have shown, we've seen in this moment, at least, a dramatic decrease in the number of irregular migrants seeking to transit the border. At the same time, we're determined together to work on making sure that migration is orderly, is safe, and is humane. And I greatly appreciate everything that we've been working on together to do that.

We have a very strong common economic destiny that's seen every day in the work that our countries do and our people do with each other. But as we were discussing with our partners from the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, there is so much more that we can and are doing between our countries and in our hemisphere for the 21st century economy: strengthening our supply chains, focusing on critical technologies as well as critical minerals, working together to make sure that we have the most competitive hemisphere in the world. And I'm glad for the progress we're making there.

Citizen security - there again is something that joins us together. We have mutual responsibilities, whether it's guns, whether it's drugs, to make sure that we're doing everything possible to give our citizens the secure lives they deserve so that they can pursue their lives in peace.

But in these areas and so many more, Mexico and the United States working together is what gets results. I'm proud of the results that we've achieved; looking forward to doing more in the months ahead.

Alicia.

FOREIGN SECRETARY BÁRCENA: Well, thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to be here in the Department of State with my very good friend, I have to say, Antony Blinken. We have developed a wonderful relationship. And as you said very well, I think the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico is going through a very positive moment. We have mechanisms of dialogue. We have been able to engage in very fruitful conversations, and with results, which is exactly what we're looking for.

As you said, in migration, for example, we have been able to pull down the numbers in a way that I guess that orderly, secure migration can be more possible than ever. In fact, the U.S. is already helping us to do some of the actions that we're taking, and also we are taking actions ourselves, also with the governments of the region because many of the migrants that are now traveling through Mexico to come to the U.S. are not really Mexicans, are really more from countries of South America and Central America.

So we are working hard with these governments precisely to make sure that we all work together with a vision of - I would say migration is phenomenon that will never stop, probably. But at least we want to make it orderly, secure, safe, and therefore we are exploring many ways - for example, labor mobility, which is something that we are dealing with. And this - in this meeting today on the prosperity, the alliance for prosperity - economic prosperity in the Americas, it's so important because we believe that that's the edge where we have to go in terms of developing sectors that can engage not only Mexico and the U.S., but the whole hemisphere, to generate employment. Because at the end of the day, people in human mobility are looking for opportunities and employment, and we want Mexico to be a good destiny. We don't want Mexico only to be a transit country; we want it to be a good destiny, and that's what we're working on.

And I have to say that relationship with Tony Blinken has been a blessing because it's so good to have this type of communication, not only with you; we have, of course, very good engagement with other parts of the government, but indeed with the Department of State has been wonderful.

And I have to say that also on fentanyl, we have made a lot of progress because your global alliance that you created - and we are part of it, a very integral part of it - we are working very hard to stop the value chain of the precursors of fentanyl, and we are making a lot of progress in Mexico to avoid and to stop that from coming the way to the U.S. And Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is very firm that the relationship with your government, with President Biden, has been absolutely fabulous, and we have been able to work on migration, on fentanyl, on security, on arms trafficking, and now on America - on prosperity, on this joint economic prosperity that we're building together.

Because we believe that North America region, which is the most, I would say, dynamic region of the world today, we have a trade relationship of more than $800 billion between Mexico and the U.S. We have a border that is very dynamic. It's not only about people; it's also about commerce and trade and goods and services that come and go.

So I am very optimistic. I came precisely to this meeting and to meet my very good friend, because now I'm going to move on to another ministry, which is Environment and Human - and Natural Resources, with our newly president Claudia Sheinbaum, who of course is the first woman who will become president after 200 years of the existence of it, which is very, very good news. And she's somebody that you will like very much. Maybe you have met her already. She is totally committed with prosperity, with environment, with the renewable energies. I mean, so we do have, I think, a very luminous future together.

Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to have this opportunity to tell you how much Mexico values the relationship with the United States.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thanks, everyone. Thanks.

FOREIGN MINISTER BÁRCENA: Thank you.

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