The insignificance of the Mexican President has already infected the country.
One cannot imagine Mexico’s President Adolfo López Mateos (1958-1964) receiving Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, instead of President John F. Kennedy, or President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970) receiving Vice president Hubert Humprey instead of President Lyndon Johnson, or Vice President Spiro Agnew instead of President Richard Nixon.
Not even the disheveled President Luis Echeverría (1970-1976) received Vice President Spiro Agnew or Vice President Gerald Ford; he received President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford, not Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.
President José López Portillo (1982-1988) received President Jimmy Carter, not Vice President Walter Mondale, and also received President Ronald Reagan, not Vice President George H. W. Bush.
President Miguel de Lamadrid (1982-1988) received President Ronald Reagan, not Vice President George H.W. Bush.
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) negotiated with President George H. W. Bush, not with Vice President Dan Quayle, and later with President Bill Clinton, not with Vice President Albert Gore.
President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (1994-2000) met with President Bill Clinton, not with Vice President Albert Gore.
President Vicente Fox Quezada (2000-2006) received President George W. Bush, not Vice President Dick Cheney.
President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (2006-2012) interacted with President Barack Obama, not with Vice President Joe Biden.
Last, President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) dealt with President Barack Obama, not with Vice President Joe Biden, and later with President Donald Trump, not with Vice President Mike Pence.
Even though AMLO visited President Donald Trump in Washington*, it was more a campaign support visit than a formal State visit. Since the level of AMLO as president is so small-town, his national project -if you can call it his whims- is made up of four projects that are as unnecessary as they are expensive and out of time, his long-term vision that does not go beyond the next election, his political behavior that equates him with his Central American neighbors, the United States government, with good reason, places him on the same level of priority as Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. For this reason, the president of Mexico is not granted the level of dealing with the United States president but, as a courtesy, with Vice President Harris. It is not an offense to the Mexicans; it is only recognition of their president’s level.
*https://sepgra.com/presidential-visits/