Mexico, Guatemala, and US hold trilateral migration meeting
The Washington Watch is our weekly update on key developments in bilateral relations between the United States of America and Latin American countries. Please find today’s article below.
Mexico/Guatemala: On 28 February senior Mexican, Guatemalan, and US officials convened at the US State Department for a trilateral ministerial meeting which aimed to strengthen collaboration on managing migration and displacement, whilst further promoting regional progress and development. According to a joint statement shared by the US State Department, the official agenda included matters concerning “issues related to root causes and development, border enforcement and control, labour mobility pathways and orderly, humane, and regular migration in the region”. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and White House Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall led the US delegation. Guatemala’s Foreign Minister Carlos Ramiro Martínez and Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez attended on behalf of Guatemala, with Mexico’s Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena leading the Mexican delegation. Blinken affirmed that the US partnership with respect to Guatemala and Mexico “has never been stronger, never been greater”. He said that while the challenges were also significant, “we are facing them together across the board”. The delegations agreed on the urgency of addressing the root causes of irregular migration, discussing the importance of encouraging investments in Guatemala that develop infrastructure and expand access to health, education, electricity, and housing. Participants also emphasised the need to foster economic productivity and supply chains between the three countries, and to create jobs in the region. The delegations committed to expanding access to labour mobility pathways as well as strengthening joint law enforcement efforts, including by enhancing information sharing and working collectively to investigative and prosecute human trafficking and migrant smuggling networks. Discussion also focused on the need to increase joint efforts on humane border management and enforcement at the US-Mexico and Mexico-Guatemala borders. The delegations agreed to establish a trilateral working group to improve security, law enforcement, processes, and infrastructure along their international borders.
Chile: On 1 March US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen met with Chile’s President Gabriel Boric. The pair discussed a range of topics, including trade, tax, and the green transition. Following the meeting Yellen thanked Boric for the meeting and described him as “a critical partner to further deepen the economic ties between our two countries.” While in Chile Yellen also held meetings with the president of Chile’s central bank (BCCh), Rosanna Costa and Chile’s finance minister, Mario Marcel, as well as holding a roundtable discussion with business leaders from the country. Following her meeting at Chile’s chamber of commerce, Yellen highlighted the strength of bilateral relations, noting that 2023 marked the twentieth anniversary of the US-Chile free trade agreement. Yellen also drew attention to the steps that had been taken since the beginning of the administration of US President Joe Biden in 2021. These include the signing of a comprehensive bilateral tax treaty in December last year which aims to combat double taxation, and Chile’s accession to the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (Apep), an initiative of the Biden government which seeks to deepen economic integration in the region. Yellen ended her trip to the country with a visit to a US-owned lithium conversion plant in Antofagasta, in the north of the country. In remarks made at the plant, Yellen described Chile as a key partner in both the green transition and its effort to reduce the exposure of its supply-chains to China. Chile is the world’s leading producer of copper and the second-largest producer of lithium, two metals which are crucial in the green transition. She also commended Chile for its own efforts to decarbonise its economy, noting that it is the region’s first sovereign green bond issuer and also has one of the world’s greenest electricity grids, with 60% of its power coming from green energy sources.
Colombia: On 28 February Colombian national Edgar ‘Don Julio’ Cubillos-Burbano pleaded guilty to conspiring to import cocaine into the US, US Attorney Roger Handberg announced. He faces a minimum mandatory penalty of ten years, though it could extend to a life sentence. The sentencing date is yet to be determined. Cubillos-Burbano was arrested in Necoclí, in Colombia’s north-western department of Antioquia on 10 November 2021 and was extradited to the US on 20 September 2023. Cubillos-Burbano owned and operated clandestine cocaine laboratories in northern Colombia, with the permission of Clan Del Golfo (Colombia’s largest DTO), according to the plea agreement. The laboratory supplied Clan Del Golfo and various other clients, with the cocaine being sent either to Central America for importation to the US or routed to Europe. On 5 July 2015 Colombian law enforcement seized some 3,082 kilograms of cocaine near the shoreline of Capurganá, Chocó department, near Colombia’s border with Panama. According to the statement, one of Cubillos-Burbano’s cocaine purchasers was responsible for smuggling this shipment, half of which was intended for the US. Cubillos-Burbano’s prosecution is part of an Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Strike Force Initiative, “which provides for the establishment of permanent multi-agency task force teams that work side-by-side in the same location,” according to a Department of Justice (DoJ) statement. The prosecution of Cubillos-Burbano is being led by the Office of the US Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, and will be prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Dan Baeza.
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Guatemala: On 28 February the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) imposed new sanctions on the Los Pochos drug trafficking organisation (DTO), according to a statement from the Treasury Department. Ofac designated three members of the group and four affiliated companies based in Guatemala. According to the statement, Los Pochos is “a Guatemala-based organisation primarily engaged in cocaine trafficking from Guatemala through Mexico to the United States” and was first sanctioned in 2019 pursuant to the Kingpin Act. “Today’s action places renewed attention on the Los Pochos DTO following a change in leadership and involvement of its members in local Guatemalan politics,” the statement reads. Associated with Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa DTO, Los Pochos controls narcotics trafficking on the Guatemala-Mexico border. “Treasury, in close coordination with our law enforcement partners, will continue to leverage our tools to disrupt these facilitation networks and deadly drug flows,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson. The sanctions require that all property and property interests of the designated individuals and entities that are in the US must be blocked and reported to Ofac.
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