United States – Mexico Defense Bilateral Working Group

July 5, 2021

Institutional context

In August 2019, the Trump Administration agreed to the proposal by the Mexican government to create a High-Level Working Group whose focus was security and that included the Mérida Initiative as a central aspect of the bilateral efforts. This working group was named as the United States - Mexico Defense Bilateral Working Group. It is the bilateral defense component of the United States – Mexico High Level cooperation efforts that began in 2013. The purpose of these working groups is to build a common understanding of challenges and to identify and implement initiatives to promote bilateral defense cooperation.

Tenth meeting of the United States – Mexico Bilateral Defense Working Group

On June 17, 2021, the tenth meeting of the United States – Mexico Bilateral Defense Working Group took place. The meeting was co-hosted under Secretary for Policy, Dr. Colin Kahl, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, Mr. Ronald Moultrie. From the Mexican side participated Major General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, Chief of Staff of the Mexican Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) and Vice Admiral Luis Javier Robinson Portillo Villanueva, Chief of Staff of the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR).

The co-chairs agreed to expand U.S. and Mexican defense cooperation, advance bilateral capability to address mutually identified regional defense challenges, expand bilateral support and cooperation for regional defense cooperation activities, and exchange lessons-learned and best practices.