US Vice-President Kamala Harris made her first foreign trip yesterday with a visit to Mexico and a meeting with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

He is regarded as a key but complicated ally in the Biden administration’s efforts to curb the spike in migration at the US border.

While Mr López Obrador committed in a previous virtual meeting with Ms Harris that the US can “count on us” to help address the issue of irregular migration, he has in the past blamed President Joe Biden for the increase in migration at the border.

He was chummy with his predecessor, Donald Trump, despite Mr Trump’s hardline policies toward migrants.

Early last month, he also accused the US of violating Mexico’s sovereignty for giving money to non-governmental organisations that were critical of his government.

However, Ms Harris, in her role dealing with the root causes of increased migration from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, as well as Mexico, has sought to strengthen diplomatic relations with the Mexican president. She has held multiple calls and a virtual bilateral meeting with him.

“We have a partnership, a long-standing partnership. Other than Canada, we are the closest neighbours to each other,” Ms Harris told reporters on Monday night.

“That is the basis of the conversation I will have with him — is with that spirit, that we have to be partners.”

The meeting followed Ms Harris’s Monday visit to Guatemala, where she met President Alejandro Giammattei. To coincide with their meeting, the Biden administration announced a number of new commitments to combat trafficking, smuggling and corruption, as well as investments in economic development in the country.

But yesterday, her meeting with Mr López Obrador was not expected to deliver as many concrete commitments.

The two were due to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding that will establish greater cooperation between the two nations on development programmes in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Aides said they had discussed vaccine sharing, the economic and security relationship between the two nations and dealing with the root causes of migration from other countries in the region.