Blinken’s first ‘visits’: Mexico and Canada

Economics a focus of virtual sessions

WASHINGTON — Diplomats sat beside stacks of briefing papers, flanked by flags and emphasized their closeness. But they were geographically far apart Friday as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, because of the pandemic, started a new chapter in North American relations with virtual visits to Mexico and Canada, billed as his first official trip.

Although symbolically important in any administration, the decision by President Joe Biden to dispatch Mr. Blinken to Mexico and Canada for the first visits is part of a broader effort to turn the page from a predecessor who at times had fraught relations with both nations. The three nations signed a revamped trade accord last year after then President Donald Trump demanded a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“The United States has long- standing relationships with both Mexico and Canada,” Mr. Blinken said afterward. “Today’s meetings were an opportunity to dive deeper into shared priorities.”

The secretary began with Mexico, a country Mr. Trump repeatedly disparaged into early in his presidency, although relations turned more cordial under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “I wanted to ‘visit,’ in quotation marks, Mexico first to demonstrate the importance that we attach, President Biden attaches, to the relationship between our countries,” Mr. Blinken told his counterpart, Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard.