Pubdate: Fri, 26 Jan 2001
Source: International Herald-Tribune (France)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2001
Contact:  181, Avenue Charles de Gaulle, 92521 Neuilly Cedex, France
Fax: (33) 1 41 43 93 38
Website: http://www.iht.com/
Note: From The New York Times

CLOSER TO MEXICO

In announcing that his first foreign trip as president will be to Mexico, 
George W. Bush is living up to his campaign pledge to forge a "special 
relationship" with it. Although that phrase is usually reserved for 
America's traditional friendship with Britain, Mr. Bush is right to set 
ambitious goals for strengthening relations with Mexico. Thanks to 
President Vicente Fox's electoral defeat of the long-ruling Institutional 
Revolutionary Party last year, a more democratic Mexico can be an important 
American ally in the Western Hemisphere.

As governor of Texas, Mr. Bush routinely met with governors of northern 
Mexican states and spoke of America's 3,200-kilometer border with Mexico as 
a source of opportunity. He has often expressed his affection for Mr. Fox, 
another plainspoken former businessman who feels most at home on his ranch 
- - in Guanajuato State, where the two leaders will meet in mid-February.

Bill Clinton recognized Mexico's economic significance when he offered that 
country more than $20 billion in emergency loans in 1995 after the collapse 
of the peso. The two economies have since become more closely linked. 
Mexico, a nation of 100 million people, is America's second largest trading 
partner and an important source of oil. Its economic growth in recent years 
has been fueled by exports, some 85 percent of which come to the United States.

A closer partnership with Mexico will require reducing tensions over 
immigration and illicit drugs. Mr. Fox would like to see unfettered labor 
movement across an open border with the United States. Although that is not 
realistic anytime soon, given the disparity between the two nations' living 
standards, a new guest worker program is being considered that would allow 
more of the 350,000 Mexicans who cross the border each year to do so 
legally. The idea has merit, particularly if Mr. Fox agrees to help curtail 
illegal immigration.

Mexico must show concrete signs of progress in stemming the flow of illegal 
drugs across the border. Mexicans once viewed the drug trade primarily as a 
U.S. problem, but Mr. Fox has acknowledged that the growing power of the 
drug cartels in Mexico is undermining the rule of law. He has vowed to 
crack down on corruption within various law enforcement agencies and to 
mobilize the army against the cartels. Previous Mexican presidents have 
made similar vows, to little effect.

On other issues, cooperation between the two nations is already growing. 
Mexico no longer reflexively counters U.S. diplomacy as a means of 
asserting its own sovereignty. Its support for Fidel Castro has waned in 
recent years, and the Fox administration seems more willing than its PRI 
predecessors to take an aggressive stand for issues of democracy and human 
rights in the hemisphere.

Mr. Bush would be wise to develop a consensus with his Mexican counterpart 
on a broad array of hemispheric issues. Mexico has the stature and 
credibility in Latin America to counter the often mischievous diplomacy of 
Mr. Castro and Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. A united front would be 
particularly valuable in addressing such issues as Peru's return to 
democracy and the intensifying struggle by Colombia's president, Andres 
Pastrana, against a Marxist guerrilla rebellion, drug cartels and 
right-wing paramilitary groups. If Mr. Bush intends to make Latin America a 
centerpiece of his foreign policy, reinforcing relations with Mexico is the 
right way to start.

THE NEW YORK TIMES.
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