Friction takes center stage at 'Amigos summit' in Mexico

As US President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met on Tuesday for a series of talks on migration, trade and climate change at the North American Leaders' Summit in Mexico City, it became obvious that the "Three Amigos Summit "was not without tension.

A supposedly brief exchange of pleasantries between Biden and Lopez Obrador on Monday turned into a contentious debate over the history of US support for Latin America.

Lopez Obrador told Biden that the United States has done little to support development in Latin America since president John F.Kennedy's "Alliance for Progress "spending in the early 1960s.

He asked Biden to improve life across the region, telling him that "you hold the key in your hand".

"This is the moment for us to determine to do away with this abandonment, this disdain and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean," Lopez Obrador told Biden.

Biden did not agree, replying that the US has spent "tens of billions of dollars in the hemisphere" in the last 15 years, and that he had secured agreements from G7 countries to support infrastructure projects in the region.

However, Biden acknowledged that the US' response is not limited to the North American continent. "Unfortunately, our response just doesn't end in the Western Hemisphere. It's in Central Europe. It's in Asia. It's in the Middle East. It's in Africa," he said. "I wish we could just have one focus."

Biden and Lopez Obrador have not been on good terms for the past two years. Lopez Obrador openly expressed his admiration for Biden's 2020 presidential opponent Donald Trump, and he skipped the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last year.

Both Trudeau and Lopez Obrador are concerned about Biden's efforts to boost US domestic manufacturing.

Biden's proposed spending plan stipulated that it would offer US consumers a $7,500 tax credit if they buy electric vehicles through 2026. After 2026, only purchases of electric vehicles made in the US would qualify for the credit. The base credit would go up by $4,500 for a vehicle made at a US plant that operates under a union-negotiated agreement.

Trudeau said in November that the credit would pose problems for vehicle production in Canada.

The White House released a statement outlining key targets of the summit, including trilateral cooperation in securing semiconductor and critical mineral supply chains, clean energy, a safe pathway for immigration, and curbing drug and human trafficking.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.