From there, the president went to Belize City to meet with the PM and deliver an official statement. Courtney Menzies has that story from the Laing building:
From the Philip Goldson International Airport, the President of the United Mexican States made his way to the Edward Laing Building on St. Mark Street.
It was there, in front of a sea of cameras and reporters, that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador spoke about what's in store for the future of the two neighbouring countries.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, President of the United Mexican States
"[Spanish] We have an agreement with the Prime Minister so that Mexico could remove our tariffs on products that Belize could export into our country. I'm saying that they will be able to export from Belize to Mexico, food products, agricultural products, beef, and others, basic food products, without paying the custom duties, suspended tariffs."
And after the president's speech, Prime Minister John Briceno took the stand to express his gratitude for the relationship between Belize and Mexico.
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We have always had this special relationship between both countries, between Mexico and Belize. We've always looked at Mexico as our big brother, somebody that we could always depend on, that would help us and the issue of trade is one that has been a challenge for us for decades; for many years, we have been importing from Mexico, and we sell very little."
"By removing these taxes, the import taxes into Mexico, it would give our Belizean farmers the opportunity to compete. I can remember for many years when we were in government between 1998 and 2008, we worked very hard to be able to export rice into Mexico but we were never successful in that. With the opportunities that the president is giving us today, we will be able to export rice, cattle, shrimp, fish, corn, beans, many products that they need to be able to eat in Mexico. And this is going to be a game changer for Belize, not only for the farmers but for us as a country that we'll be able to export all these products."
But that's not all - an agreement between the two countries will see a major change in the agriculture sector.
Hon. Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"Sembrando Viva is a Mexican unique program to support small producers in Central America, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala and now Belize. Mexico has offered to provide assistance to 2,000 farmers. It means that 2,000 farmers will be getting a small stipend monthly for 4 months to produce selected quantities which we have to determine yet the technical team at agriculture. They will also provide agro-inputs for the production of these commodities. We estimate that it could be between 8-10 million dollars that this program will be supporting in term of value of the project, so it is a tremendous boost to the productive sector, its targeting small farmers and I think that this is one of the greatest moments in the history of these two countries."
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"A program that can help our people in the rural areas, our poor people, that can help stem migration away from our countries because by working in agriculture, working in the rural areas, Mexico is assisting us to be able to work with at least 2,000 farmers, assisting us with technology, assisting some of the inputs we would need and also with even funding to be able to have these 2,000 farmers. So this again is another game changer for us in Belize."
Following the speeches, members of both countries' Cabinets sat down for lunch before the president jetted off to the next leg of his tour in Cuba.
This was the third meeting between Belize's PM and Mexico's president. A joint communique says that they agreed to explore the development of "Escuela Mexico" programme of support for three educational institutions which specialize in technical vocation. Additionally, they both instructed the competent authorities to hold technical meetings to explore the feasibility of linking the "Mayan Train", with Belize.
After his stop in Belize - he flew off to Cuba where his tour ended.
President Lopez Obrador's tour was explicitly to discuss initiatives to prevent Central American citizens from pressing into Mexico in attempts to get into the United States.
