On Jan. 14-15, 2021, the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies (USMEX) at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) organized the U.S.-Mexico Forum 2025 convinced that Joseph Biden’s election represented a major opportunity to rethink the bilateral relationship. The forum’s objective was to provide recommendations for greater coordination over the four years during which Biden and Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will govern simultaneously (2021-2025).

As a result of the forum’s first stage in 2021, a group of Mexican and U.S. scholars, practitioners and experts created five white papers with specific recommendations to encourage cooperation and improve the bilateral relationship. These white papers were written and discussed extensively by each of the forum’s working groups on the five most relevant issues in the relationship: migration; energy and sustainability; trade, economy and work; security and public health; and strategic diplomacy.

On June 1-2, 2022, USMEX organized the first in-person meeting of the U.S.-Mexico Forum 2025. Nearly 150 people convened to evaluate the progress in each issue area over the first year of Biden’s presidency.

Discussions and presentations during the U.S.-Mexico Forum – Conference 2022 focused on the new world order, the state of democracy in Mexico and the U.S., the potential role of action research in policy, consular diplomacy and the power of women in U.S.-Mexico relations.

Additionally, USMEX presented the Jeffrey Davidow Good Neighbor Award to recognize outstanding actors in the bilateral relationship whose efforts and actions help bring our two nations closer.