Mexico’s new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday said he will seek to remain in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) along with the United States and Canada.
Lopez Obrador won a landslide election victory on Sunday, getting more than double the votes of his nearest rival to become the first leftist to win the Mexican presidency since one-party rule ended in 2000.
Lopez Obrador, a 64-year-old former mayor of Mexico City, won more than 53 per cent of votes in Sunday’s election, preliminary results showed. Mexicans also voted for congressional candidates and thousands of state and local government posts.
“We are going to accompany the current government in this negotiation, we are going to be very respectful, and we are going to support the signing of the agreement,” he told Milenio TV.
While stressing that he would pursue a frank and friendly relations with the US, Lopez Obrador, who will take office in December, said he would discuss NAFTA with President with the country’s outgoing president, Enrique Pena Nieto in their first meeting after the election set for Tuesday.
US President, Donald Trump has been openly antagonistic to Mexico over trade and migration since his own presidential campaign. The current NAFTA talks began last year after Trump called for the agreement to be renegotiated to better serve U.S. interests.
Despite Trump having congratulated Lopez Obrador in a Twitter message on Sunday night, Mexican politicians across the political spectrum have long said that Mexico would not pay for Trump’s proposed wall along the southern border of US to keep out both illegal immigrants and narcotics.
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