(Washington) Canada and Mexico to redistribute millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine they received from the United States to other countries in the Western Hemisphere as part of the ‘Three Amigos’ leaders’ summit “.
Senior U.S. government officials described the measure ahead of Thursday’s President Joe Biden’s White House meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, provided advance details on U.S. priorities ahead of the first North American leaders’ summit since Canada hosted the last five years ago.
Of those leaders, only Justin Trudeau is still there, but an initiative he announced with former US President Barack Obama in Ottawa in 2016 is being revived by Joe Biden – a North American task force on violence against women. and indigenous girls.
The three leaders will also seek to strengthen trilateral cooperation on the unprecedented Western Hemisphere migration crisis that has seen millions of Central American asylum seekers reach Mexico’s borders as the economic and political crisis continues. from Venezuela is expected to cause six million refugees by the end of the year.
The overall theme of the summit is to join forces for economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and to make the North American continent more resilient and self-sufficient in the face of global supply chain bottlenecks.
The plan for Canada and Mexico to share their surplus vaccines supplied by the United States is part of this economic stimulus project. When the United States loaned millions of vaccines to Canada and Mexico, there was an agreement that it would “donate” them to regional partners, an official said.
The exact details of the distribution are to be determined later by public health experts, officials said.
U.S. officials have said there can be no economic competitiveness without fairness and justice, so Joe Biden is keen to forge a continental partnership on racial equity and inclusion. A top priority for Joe Biden is the creation of a trilateral task force on violence against Indigenous women and girls.
The Obama White House trumpeted the same initiative after the 2016 “Three Amigos” summit and declared that Canada would host the first meeting on the subject in 2017. After Donald Trump arrived in the White House , this initiative has been put on hold.
Joe Biden also wants to engage with Canada and Mexico to address the root causes of the massive migration of asylum seekers south of the Mexican border.
Joe Biden wants to agree with Canada and Mexico on a common approach to tackle the economic inequalities that are forcing people in the western hemisphere to flee their countries in record numbers, officials said.
Given the labor shortages in North America, new approaches must be found to match economic migrants with potential employment opportunities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, officials said.
The three leaders will focus on supply chain issues hampering post-pandemic economic recovery.
Canada should be added to the U.S.-Mexico Supply Chain Working Group to make it a North American-wide effort to minimize future disruption to the continent. The new task force will look at defining essential industries, including essential minerals, officials said.
Justin Trudeau used his first day in Washington on Wednesday to talk about Canada’s competitive advantage over essential minerals, which are used in the batteries of computers, cellphones, electric vehicles and other essential items.
Justin Trudeau told a think tank his government started talking to the United States two or three years ago about Canada’s plentiful supply of essential minerals.
China is the world’s largest supplier of these minerals, but supply chain problems induced by the pandemic have created significant shortages.