Mexico’s president starts regional tour in Guatemala

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has started a lightning, five-day tour to four Central American countries and Cuba, stopping first in neighboring Guatemala. Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard wrote in his social media accounts that meetings with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and other officials on Thursday focused on development, migration and strengthening bilateral ties. López Obrador hopes to stem the poverty and joblessness that sends tens of thousands of Guatemalans north through Mexico to reach the United States by expanding his tree-planting program to Central America. The program pays farmers to plant and care for fruit and lumber trees on their farms.