Posted on 01/12/2004 3:19:40 PM PST by Happy2BMe
MONTERREY, Mexico – President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, their relationship strained by tensions over immigration and Iraq, met privately for talks on a range of issues Monday as a prelude to an international summit meeting of 34 Western Hemisphere nations.
The Bush White House saw the face-to-face meeting not only as a chance to mend ties between the two countries, but also to earn political capital for a president who wants a second term.
Bush arrived in this industrial city at midday at an airport where gun-toting troops in green fatigues and security officers roamed the grounds. He and his wife, Laura, walked down into a phalanx of Mexican officials, all men wearing dark suits.
The couple were followed in the procession of greeting by Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House chief of staff Andy Card. Once in his motorcade, Bush passed large expanses of brush and cactus- covered land. Men digging ditches alongside the road stopped and leaned on their tools to watch him pass by.
On a 90-minute flight here from Texas, Bush got a briefing from Rice and Powell on the summit, said his press secretary, Scott McClellan.
In his meeting with Fox, the spokesman said, the president was expected to discuss his new, more open immigration policy, strengthening border security and free trade. McCellan dismissed talk of the meeting as an opportunity to air grievances.
"We have a good relationship with Mexico, and President Fox is a good friend of the president's", McClellan said. "Whatever differences we had in the past, we have a lot of common challenges that we are working closely together on."
Sorry, Castro
Bush annoyed Fox when he put changes in immigration on the back burner after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Their relationship further soured when Mexico failed to back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But the two were expected to be smiling, at least for the cameras, at the summit of freely elected leaders. Cuba was not invited.
"Fox has an opportunity to hail the Bush immigration proposal as a political victory, given that he has been asking for an immigration agreement since day one," said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the Mexico project at Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "I think to some extent, Bush will use it as a photo op for reaching out to the Hispanic voters."
Amid the congenial handshakes will be disagreements. Latin American nations butted heads with the United States until nearly dawn Sunday in failing to agree on several points of a draft document to be debated at the two-day summit.
Bigger Than NAFTA
The United States wants the draft to call for re-emphasizing a 2005 deadline for finishing negotiations on a Free Trade Area of the Americas, a hemisphere-wide trade zone that is one of Bush's top policy goals for Latin America. Brazil and Venezuela say the summit is not the place to discuss it.
The United States also wants to kick corrupt governments out of the Organization of American States, a move opposed by several Latin American nations.
Other discussion topics at the summit, held in Mexico's third-largest city, 150 miles south of the Texas border city of Laredo, include strengthening free republics, ending poverty, security and helping small businesses with low-interest loans.
Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner is upset about recent U.S. criticism over its warming relations with Cuba. U.S. officials privately worry that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who warned U.S. officials on Saturday not to "stick their noses" in his nation's affairs, is working with Cuba to oppose pro-American republics in the region.
200 Million More on the U.S. Taxpayers' Dole?!
Some Latin American leaders accuse America of being heavy-handed. They argue that the United States has neglected social issues, such as raising the standard of living for 200 million people, nearly one-half the region's population, who live in poverty.
Between bilateral meetings Monday with President Ricardo Lagos of Chile and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Bush's schedule called for his speech at the summit's opening ceremonies. He planned to promote free trade, open markets, clean elections and anti-corruption steps to help strengthen freedom in the hemisphere.
An administration official said the United States also planned to announce it would return to Peru $20 million allegedly stolen by Vladimiro Montesinos, a former Peruvian intelligence chief, and stashed in American bank accounts.
© 2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Fox is in a tough position. He has a PRI congress, if you know anything about Mexican politics. Hey I'm with you, Mexico has to clean up it's house. It should be another Chile, but it will a long and arduous process. I can understand that, while you seem to have a fondness for knee jerk rants.
Tony Soprano should be so lucky.
I use pictures and cartoons sometimes, but not for the vast majority of my posts as you seem to do.
Rant right reserved for after escape.
Huh, that is waht Bush is trying to do. Document these people so that they do pay taxes and yet you are against him for proposing that.
Also in the 80's I knew a family that sent care packages and money to communist Poland. I guess to you they were evil also.
Any questions?
And how would you seal it? Come on I want to hear the details. Look at the most sealed border in the world, the 100 mile border between North and South Korea. It takes the US and South Korea billions of dollars each year to maintain it and it also takes a conscripted South korean army of 750,000 to man it. Now multiply the money and manpower by 20 and you have your "dream" of a sealed border.
I can see that, you almost exclusively use other people pictures and words to make your point. Kinda of socialistic if you ask me.
Who really killed Kennedy? :-)
I think without ranting you need to know my take. It's two fold.
The first is that we need warm live bodies earning less than $84,000 per year to replace the 40,000,000 we aborted since 1974 since we have a "pay as you go Social Security System". It's a matter of national security that we replace those earners. Mexicans cure our abortion policy problem and it's economic impact to Social Security.
The second take is Monroe Doctrine based and will eventually morph All of our countries into one EU style body. This will be slow, arduous as you say, and will take a good fifty years of incrementalism to take hold. Bush is saying that he supports it.
Thank you.
Huh Bush will make partial privitization of Social Security a campaign theme this year. As for abortion I'm against it also. Mexicans are against it also, BTW. But you decide to ridicule conservative ones and push them away.
The second take is Monroe Doctrine based and will eventually morph All of our countries into one EU style body. This will be slow, arduous as you say, and will take a good fifty years of incrementalism to take hold. Bush is saying that he supports it
He supports free trade zones. I haven't heard him state an AU(Americas' Union) based on the EU, but you know that and have to morph into Ms. Cleo with your 50 year sequiter. BTW, if you are so sure that you can see the future 50 years down the raod, then it should be no problem for you to give me a stock tip in which I can make a million dollars tomorrow.
JMO, history says they were neutral but they were more collaborators with the axis and harbored the nazi gold in their banks.
History can be quite refreshing from time to time. I had a boss in the 80's who was a child during WWII in Switzerland. Fascinating guy.
Social Security will be unchanged and Helen Thomas will still be alive.
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