Obama to Mexico for North American Summit on Feb. 19
U.S. President Barack Obama will travel to Toluca, Mexico on February 19 for a North American leaders summit, the White House said Monday.
The meeting will be hosted by Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto and will also include Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the talks would focus on "a range of issues important to the daily lives of all of North America's people, including economic competitiveness, entrepreneurship, trade and investment, and citizen security."
The talks will mark the first visit by Obama to Mexico since relations between the neighbors were rattled by fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden's allegations of U.S. spying against Mexican leaders.
Claims that the National Security Agency spied on Pena Nieto and his predecessors embarrassed the United States, following a wave of global anger at its alleged spying operations.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry said, meanwhile, that Obama and Pena Nieto spoke by phone on Monday morning, and the U.S. leader praised his counterpart on reforms made during his first year in office.
Since Pena Nieto was inaugurated in December 2012, he has pushed through a series of reforms in education, telecommunications and in the finance sector.
Source: Agence France Presse
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