Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to the president of Finland Monday about addressing the surge of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, a Central American region known as the Northern Triangle, an official readout of the conversation revealed.
Meanwhile, Harris has yet to speak to the Salvadoran and Honduran presidents, focusing only on Mexico and Guatemala.
President Joe Biden tapped Harris to lead his administration’s efforts to work with Mexico and Northern Triangle countries to stem the flow of migrants fueling the ongoing border crisis that has overwhelmed resources and manpower.
The U.S. vice president spoke to Finnish President Sauli Niinistö on Monday.
“They discussed the need for more coordinated international action to address the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle,” among other things, a readout of the conversation issued by the office of the vice president noted.
As of 7:00 p.m. Monday, the readout of the conversation disseminated earlier in the day was nowhere to be found on the White House official website, home to similar statements on of talks between Harris and other world leaders.
However, Harris noted on Twitter that she spoke to the Finnish leader about migration.
Niinistö’s office also confirmed that he discussed “the migration movements towards both the United States and Europe” with Harris.
Neither Harris’s office nor the Salvadoran and Honduran governments responded to Breitbart News’s request for comment on this report.
There are tensions between the Biden administration and the presidents of El Salvador and neighboring Honduras.
U.S. prosecutors have accused Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez of being part of a cocaine trafficking conspiracy. An American judge sentenced his brother to life in prison for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. as part of a state-backed trafficking operation.
The strained relationship between the Biden administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has nothing to do with crime.
Bukele refused to see a U.S. envoy who traveled to Central America after President Joe Biden snubbed the Salvadoran leader when he tried to meet with him early this year during a trip to America, allegedly at the behest of some Democrat lawmakers.
The Salvadoran president’s top political sin appears to be working with former President Donald Trump to combat illegal migration.
Harris has repeatedly said she would focus on addressing the root causes of migration to the United States from Mexico and the Northern Triangle region, a significant source of people making the harrowing journey to America, particularly unaccompanied children and families.
The governments of Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador have blamed, directly and indirectly, the migrant surge on U.S. President Biden.
Republicans have specifically blamed Biden’s undoing of his predecessor’s border policies and a more welcoming tone from Democrats and the administration for triggering the border crisis.
The Biden Administration has vowed to devote $4 billion to prevent Mexicans and Central Americans from leaving.
Harris announced that the U.S would send an additional $310 million to the Northern Triangle countries “for humanitarian relief and address food insecurity,” the VP’s chief spokeswoman and senior adviser Symone Sanders said in a statement disseminated via Twitter.
Her announcement came in the wake of a virtual meeting with Guatemalan President Giammattei on Monday,
Harris and President Giammattei also agreed to have 16 U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials train a Guatemalan border security “task force.”