Posted on 03/29/2006 2:32:55 PM PST by hedgetrimmer
CANCUN, Mexico – President Bush will take a break from Washington's rancorous immigration debate today when he arrives in Cancun for a summit of North American leaders to discuss border, trade and security issues.
Bush will meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox, the leader who has pushed him hardest to improve the treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States.
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It could be Bush's final formal meeting with Fox, whose successor will be elected in July. And it will be Bush's first meeting with new Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The talks are a follow-up to last year's “three amigos” summit in Waco, Texas, when Bush, Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin signed a pact that Fox proclaimed would usher in “a new phase” in North American relations.
But old issues continue to color those relations. Immigration strains ties between Washington and Mexico City, with the White House fretting that the atmosphere in Cancun could be soured by heated rhetoric on Capitol Hill.
U.S.-Canadian relations are troubled by a long-standing trade dispute over softwood imports and the Bush administration's refusal to abide by a ruling from the World Trade Organization favoring Canadian industry.
In an interview with Mexican and Canadian reporters in Washington, Bush acknowledged that there have been difficult times in his dealings with the neighboring leaders.
“Face it,” he said in remarks released yesterday. “Part of the problem that we had was because of my decision to go into Iraq. And the government of both countries didn't agree.”
He said he will have a candid talk with Fox about illegal immigration. “I am disgusted by a system in which people are snuck across the border in the bottom of an 18-wheeler,” he said.
Bush also said he expects to discuss the search for a “tamper-proof system of beefing up security along U.S. borders without hindering the flow of people and goods.”
However, some experts say that none of the three leaders is in a particularly strong political position to propose major initiatives at the summit.
“President Bush is preoccupied with Iraq and political problems,” said Joseph M. Dukert, an energy analyst who tracks how the three governments work together. “Prime Minister Harper is still feeling his way in his new position and President Fox appears to have no bargaining chips left in his dealings with an opposition Congress.”
Armand Peschard Sverdrup, director of the Mexico Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, has low expectations for the two-day summit that ends Friday.
That, he said, is the beauty of the document that tops the Cancun agenda: the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
“The SPP has great political viability,” Sverdrup said. “It's not overly ambitious. It sets forward a series of action steps that each of the governments can take.”
When they unveiled it after last year's summit, the leaders demanded that their aides in the next 90 days work out ways to strengthen port, aviation and cargo security, improve intelligence cooperation, develop a common approach for screening travelers, protect against threats to agriculture and bolster protection of infrastructure.
Dukert said it has proven valuable “as a great mechanism for bringing people together to discuss the problems.” The most recent example was a meeting this month in San Diego to assess energy cooperation.
After a year of working groups and white papers, the governments are prepared to declare victory. A senior State Department official briefing reporters last week expressed satisfaction that the pact had done what it set out to, which he said was to build on the 12-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement by injecting security concerns into discussions previously dominated by trade.
He said the leaders wanted to communicate that “security in a post-9/11 world cannot just be understood in terms of national borders. . . . It has to be seen more broadly as a North American concern.”
But some outside analysts are more critical.
“They are basically going to Cancun for a photo opportunity and they will undoubtedly try to make it sound like relations are better than they are,” said Robert Pastor, director of the Center for North American Studies at American University.
Pastor called the SPP “really a timid paper-shuffling exercise,” adding, “There is no apparent progress on any of those issues.”
But Geronimo Gutiérrez, undersecretary for North American Affairs in Mexico's Foreign Ministry, said no one should expect progress on the scale of NAFTA.
He said it is “a continuous process to have the governments working together to help improve the business climate in North America.”
He described what the leaders are trying to do with SPP as “building on NAFTA and continuing to reduce the cost of doing business so we can keep North America competitive.”
He lauded what he called the increased intelligence sharing so that “once someone enters North America, either by air or by sea, everybody can know about it.”
He said there has also been progress in getting cars across the border with less delay. “Mexico and the United States are exchanging over $820 million on a daily basis at the border,” he said. “So it makes all the sense in the world to improve our efficiency and security at the border.”
At last year's meeting, Fox was frustrated that migration was kept off the agenda. But both sides acknowledge the debate in Washington overshadows any summit meeting.
“In terms of migration,” Gutiérrez said, “this is a very important moment, perhaps the most important moment in the past five years.”
He said Fox intends to raise the issue with Bush.
Fox also has an agenda unrelated to the business of governance. By bringing the summit here, Fox is trying to send a message to tourists that Cancun is back open for business after Hurricane Wilma hit last year.
Sverdrup said this is critical for Fox because Cancun “represents roughly a third of the revenue that Mexico receives from tourism.”
The only issue I see is who gets to kiss Mexico's butt first.
Canada will certainly step aside so that OUR president is first in line.
I can't even comment on this issue in fear of reprisal. Lead poisoning is gonna be the "word of the day" soon.
After which Fox will bad mouth Bush and Bush will tell how great a buddy Fox is and how much cooperation there is from Mehico.
Yeah GW. Once again, you show how weak you are when it comes to Fox and Mehico.
Oh...to be a fly on the wall.
That said...GIVE 'EM HELL, W!
In the long term you can't have open borders if the laws don't mesh and we'll get the smelly end of that stick too.
You shouldn't have to be a fly on the wall. We're supposed to have an open government, which these interntionalists ignore. Our press will report on nothing of substance, and there is no congressional record keeping or other recordkeeping on these meetings that I know of.
I think all politicians are racists. They won't say what need to be said about Mexico because they believe the Mexican's can't govern themselves properly.
One hemispheric merger-- coming up.
Fox is a horse trader. Why would he give Bush anything since Bush promised hmi everything without it?
He said he will have a candid talk with Fox about illegal immigration. “I am disgusted by a system in which people are snuck across the border in the bottom of an 18-wheeler,” he said.
LOL! Yeah, he wants them in airconditioned buses. Beware, this tough talk is NOT indicating enforcement, but he wants the border hopping to be more open.
I fear you are right. After seeing the crowd of "immigrants" marching and closing down roads, etc., I really don't see any other end to this. The government isn't listening to American CITIZENS and the illegals are being emboldened. Bad times ahead, I'm afraid.
Bush will meet with Mexican President Vicente Fox, the leader who has pushed him hardest to improve the treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States.
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Yeah, this should be rare. Improve the treatment of illegal criminals -- just the thought of these two together makes my skin crawl. It smells bad.
Silly headline. It's more likely that Bush WON'T "face the issues."
No, he very clearly said this about his trip today:
"But Bush made one thing clear. "No Speedo suit here," he promised."
--Bush Heads to Mexico, Doesn't Pack Speedo
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