On June 17, 2021, Under Secretary for Policy, Dr. Colin Kahl, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, Mr. Ronald Moultrie, co-hosted the tenth meeting of the United States – Mexico Bilateral Defense Working Group with 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 Defense Bilateral Working Group is the bilateral defense component of United States – Mexico high level cooperation efforts.
The co-chairs established mutual objectives, lines of effort and priorities to address the shared bilateral and transnational challenges facing our region. The co-chairs recognized that North America has regional responsibilities and complex challenges are best addressed by collaborative and cooperative responses. Together with the supporting Defense Bilateral Strategic Framework, the Defense Bilateral Working Group provides a process for bilateral cooperation between the United States and Mexico's defense institutions. The purpose is to build a common understanding of challenges and to identify and implement initiatives to promote bilateral defense cooperation.
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.