The United States government’s top climate official will accompany President López Obrador on a trip to Tabasco next week to learn about the federal government’s tree-planting employment program.

López Obrador said Friday he will travel to the municipality of Balancán on Monday with John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate.

“On Monday we’re going on a tour of the border of our country with Guatemala. We’re going to the municipality of Balancán, near Guatemala, and John Kerry, the presidential envoy of President Biden is coming,” he told reporters at his regular news conference.

“He’s coming [to discuss] climate change matters and to see the Sembrando Vida [Sowing Life] program,” the president said.

The United States government agreed last month to collaborate with Mexico on Sembrando Vida and the Youths Building the Future apprenticeship scheme in the southern region of the country and in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

López Obrador asserts that the former program, which pays participants 5,000 pesos (US $245) to plant fruit and timber-yielding trees, is not only beneficial to the environment but also helps to stem migration to the United States.

He has described the program as the most important reforestation initiative in the world, but it has been plagued by lack of planning and operational problems, according to some observers.

Mexico asked the United States to commit US $108.4 million a month for the implementation of Sembrando Vida and Youths Building the Future in Central America but the U.S. hasn’t publicly pledged to do so.

With reports from Milenio