Kushner to join Pompeo for meetings with Mexican leaders

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner will travel with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet with Mexican leaders on Friday, a senior State Department official told reporters.

The official said that Kushner, along with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, will make the trip to Mexico City on Friday to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray and President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The official called the delegation “a testament to the importance the administration and the United States places on the bilateral relationship.”

“The fact that the State Department, DHS, and Treasury, and the president’s senior adviser Jared Kushner are traveling together shows that this is a whole-of-government approach and underscores the importance of our relationship with Mexico,” the official said.

Kushner, the president's son-in-law, has served as a point person for global affairs in the White House, meeting with foreign leaders and working on policies like a peace plan for the Middle East.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Kushner doesn't have the security clearance needed to view the government's most sensitive information, which experts said could impede his ability to carry out his White House duties.

The State Department official said the officials will discuss the opioid epidemic, trade, “curb irregular immigration” and ways “to combat transnational criminal organizations” in Mexico.

López Obrador, a left-wing candidate and prominent critic of President Trump, won Mexico’s presidential election earlier this month.

Mexico-U.S. relations have soured under the Trump administration: Trump has repeatedly slammed the country over trade and immigration, and has claimed he will make Mexico pay for a wall on the U.S. border. Peña Nieto has repeatedly said Mexico won’t pay for the wall.