-Caveat Lector-
US: Editorial: Looking South
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01.n280.a01.html
Newshawk: Jo-D and Tom-E
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Feb 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
LOOKING SOUTH
"SOME look south and see problems; not me," President Bush said
yesterday as he prepared to embark for Mexico on his first foreign trip.
It is good that this president begins with such optimism and energy in
addressing the issues of this hemisphere, because it looks as if Latin
America will be considerably more challenging for his administration
than it was for the last.
For the most part, the problems do not lie in Mexico, where Mr. Bush
today will visit the ranch of another newly inaugurated president,
Vicente Fox. After being helped out of a financial crisis by the Clinton
administration six years ago, Mexico has rapidly grown into the second
largest U.S. trade partner after Canada, and Mr. Fox's election has
marked a new era of greater democracy.
Though today's talks may be light on substance, Mr. Bush and Mr.
Fox have a chance to give U.S.-Mexican relations a fresh start on such
issues as drug trafficking, immigration and border controls.
One easy way to start improving the dialogue would be to stop the
administration's annual certifications to Congress about Mexico's good
behavior on drug interdiction; Mr. Bush should support one of the
proposals now circulating to repeal this counterproductive process.
Mr. Fox may also make a good discussion partner as Mr. Bush looks
at the more serious challenges that have emerged around the region.
Colombia's war against drugs and guerrillas of the left and right is killing
a dozen people a day, and it threatens to spill over into neighboring
countries; a large U.S. aid program is controversial both in Latin
American and in Congress and has not yet proven itself.
Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has embarked on a course of
populist adventurism that could lead his country, an OPEC nation, into
serious conflict with its neighbors or with the United States. Perhaps
most significant, Mr. Bush faces a summit with leaders of the
hemisphere in Quebec in April -- and foremost in those leaders' minds
will be the question of how committed Mr. Bush will be to negotiating
new free-trade agreements. A serious commitment will mean obtaining
fast-track authority from Congress, which in turn will mean building a
bipartisan coalition and fashioning compromises on labor and
environmental issues.
At the State Department yesterday, Mr. Bush pledged that building "a
hemisphere bound together by shared ideas and free trade, from the
Arctic to the Andes to Cape Horn . . . will be a fundamental
commitment of my administration." Mexico is a good place to start --
but much work, and probably some serious trials, lies ahead.
--
I am convinced that we can do to guns what we've done to drugs: create
a multi-billion dollar underground market over which we have
absolutely no control. -George L. Roman
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
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