VP Biden to Lead US Delegation to Attend Mexico President's Inauguration Jordi Zamora - Agence France-Presse
go to original November 27, 2012

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden will lead the US delegation at the inauguration of Enrique Pena Nieto, the White House said Monday, as Mexico's president-elect arrives for a visit to Washington.

Pena Nieto, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), takes office on Saturday, replacing Felipe Calderon from the conservative National Action Party (PAN), five months after his election victory.

The US delegation to the inauguration includes Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and John Brennan, the White House's top counterterrorism adviser.

Biden's travel plans were announced as Pena Nieto arrives in Washington late Monday for a White House visit with President Barack Obama, scheduled for Tuesday.

The youthful 46-year-old's victory in July marks the return of the centrist PRI after a 12-year hiatus from national power. The PRI governed Mexico between 1929 and 2000.

The two leaders will meet for one hour at the Oval Office, first with their top advisers and then alone, Pena Nieto's transition team told reporters.

Since 1980, the presidents-elect of each country - members of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) along with Canada - have visited their respective neighbor's capital before taking office.

Obama and Pena Nieto plan to discuss a raft of bilateral, regional and global issues, likely to include the drug war raging along their shared border of more than 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers), the White House said earlier.

Calderon deployed tens of thousands of troops in late 2006 in a US-supported effort to crack down on the powerful drug cartels but violence escalated during his presidency, and the death toll - much of it in fighting between drug gangs - rose to more than 60,000.

With presidential elections over in both countries, "the results offer an opportunity to redirect our countries' bilateral relationship," Pena Nieto wrote in a recent Washington Post opinion piece.

Pena Nieto has vowed to shift the focus to reducing the wave of murders, kidnappings and extortion that is tormenting Mexicans. "I will continue the efforts begun by President Felipe Calderon, but the strategy must necessarily change," the president-elect wrote.

The United States is providing equipment and law enforcement training to Mexico under the $1.6 billion Merida Initiative, a program aimed at combating drug trafficking in a country that is a major trading partner.

While in Washington, Pena Nieto is also scheduled to meet with leaders on Capitol Hill, where immigration reform is likely to be a pressing issue when the new Congress convenes in January.

Pena Nieto travels to Canada on Wednesday to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper, then returns to Mexico.

Hispanics, an ethnic and cultural group with shared traditions, are the largest US minority group; more than 60 percent of US Hispanics are of Mexican descent.

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