The United States and Mexico on Thursday agreed to work on making shared supply chains more competitive and invest in social programs to tackle migration, according to a joint statement released by Mexico after high-level economic talks.
The so-called High-Level Economic Dialogue (HLED) was held for the first time in several years and the two sides also signaled they need greater cooperation to combat challenges of climate change and workers’ rights.
The two countries will create a bilateral working group on supply chains, Mexico’s government said in the statement.
The working group will aim to increase the resilience of cross border trade and manufacturing in the face of disruption as well as to attract production lines from other parts of the world, the statement said.
The United States agreed to give technical support including collaborating with Mexico on tree-planting and student projects in Central America aimed at offering alternatives to migration, the statement said.
The talks in Washington came as the two sides seek to find solutions to a number of controversial issues, including automotive rules requiring certain amounts of parts to be sourced in North America and the court-ordered resumption of the “Stay in Mexico” program, which sends asylum seekers outside the United States while their cases are processed.
The two countries share a 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border and a commercial relationship that generates more than half a trillion dollars in annual bilateral trade, supporting millions of jobs in both countries.
Mexico and the United States have agreed on four pillars of focus for the high-level talks, and will approve an agenda on Thursday.
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