00:00Now, moving on, later today, the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, will receive the presidents of the European Commission and Council,
00:06Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, for the eighth EU-Mexico summit.
00:10They're expected to ink a revamped trade deal to replace the previous pact struck 25 years ago.
00:16It's set to slash tariffs on a range of goods, including agricultural products.
00:21Also in Mexico is Javi López, the European Parliament's vice president, who has been part of these negotiations.
00:27I spoke to him in an interview and started by asking him what the deal offers for both sides.
00:34First, after 10 years of negotiation and after 10 years without summits at the high level that we will have
00:40it tomorrow, we are able to modernize the global agreement with Mexico after 25 years working with the current agreement.
00:49With this, we are doing more on trade, especially in predictable trade with high standards, but also we are enforcing
00:58our geopolitical alliance with one G20, a giant, culturally, demographically, economically.
01:06And in a world where all of the rest big actors are using trade as a coercive force, we are
01:16working for predictable trade agreements.
01:19So is it fair to say this agreement is more than anything a reaction against the unpredictability, perhaps, of Trump's
01:25America?
01:26We know both Mexico and the EU have been targeted by aggressive trade policies from the US.
01:32And is that going to work?
01:34Because some would look at the agreement that the EU has signed with the US, the trade agreement, and would
01:40say, well, actually, Trump is calling the shots.
01:42No, I think we are working in the right direction.
01:45We are working in the direction of diversification of our economic relations in the world, trying to reduce dependencies.
01:53Also, dependencies coming from the United States.
01:55This is the reality.
01:56We're risking our dependencies in trade, also in security.
02:00And on that, we are having a group, a mix of important association agreements.
02:06We have Mercosur, that it's a game changer with the region.
02:08We have the modernization of Mexico, and also we will have India.
02:13And it's three big examples of this offensive foreign action, foreign policy that we are having.
02:19You mentioned Mercosur, and obviously that was a big step forward.
02:22But could you argue also that the EU has been a little bit slow to deepen ties with Latin America?
02:29And we're now seeing, of course, President Trump trying to reassert his fear of influence over the Western Hemisphere.
02:35Has the EU been a little bit too negligent in the relationship?
02:38It's true that it was during a lot of years not in the radar of the priorities of the EU,
02:43and we were extremely focused in our neighborhoods.
02:46Also, we had good reasons to do that.
02:48But at the same time, now, after the Ukraine war, I will say, but after the rise of Trump, too,
02:54to the White House,
02:56we are forced to think more strategically and act more mature in the world.
03:00And our relations with Latin America, especially our strategical relations,
03:04it's the biggest partner in the world where we can work together for a multilateral dialogue,
03:11working with the same agenda, climate change, gender equality, inclusive growth,
03:16also defending international law and the chapter of the United Nations.
03:21And on that, we are working with these association agreements that are key to reinforce and are real game changers
03:28in the region.
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