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Skriven 2006-03-30 23:33:00 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0603307) for Thu, 2006 Mar 30
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President Bush Meets with President Fox in Cancun, Mexico
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 30, 2006

President Bush Meets with President Fox in Cancun, Mexico
Fiesta Americana Condesa Cancun Hotel
CancŖn, Mexico


˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Global Diplomacy

4:12 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT FOX: (As translated.) We are ready, good afternoon. I would like
to welcome President Bush to Quintana Roo, to Canc n, and to Mexico. It is
a great honor to have him here, particularly in this place in Canc n, which
is all set and receiving many visitors. But the best visitors are President
Bush and Prime Minister Harper, with our working agenda that will be
fruitful and positive for the three countries in Latin America.

Some words from Mr. Bush.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. President, thank you very much. First of all, thanks
for inviting us to Cancun, it's such a beautiful part of the world. The
hospitality is magnificent. I know you were hit hard by hurricanes, which
reminds me that I need to thank you and the Mexican people for your strong
support and help after Hurricane Katrina.

I will never forget being on the -- in the Gulf Coast area of my country,
helping people -- lift people's spirits. And we went to a school that had
been destroyed by Katrina, a little elementary school. And there was the
Navy construction team working side-by-side with members of the Mexican
Navy. It was a great sign of cooperation, and it reflects the spirit of
friendship that defines the relationship between our two countries, and
defines our personal relationship.

When you were speaking I thought about the first time I went to visit you.
I was newly-elected and flew down to your fantastic ranch. And that started
a very important relationship. And I think it's important for the people of
our countries to know that while we haven't agreed on every single issue,
that nevertheless, we work in the spirit of friendship and cooperation.

Today we had a very important discussion. We discussed border security. The
President understands and I understand we have an obligation to secure our
borders. And I want to thank your government for sending out such a strong
statement about the need for -- that the shared responsibility we have. In
other words, border security is not just one country's prerogative; it's
the prerogative and duty of both countries. And we spent time talking about
how to work together to continue to strengthen that cooperation necessary
to do our duty.

I also appreciate the President's work to enforce Mexico's southern border.
It's a difficult job, but, nevertheless, the President shared with me the
strategies he's employing to do that job, as well.

Obviously, the migration issue came up. I told the President there is a
legislative process that's going forward, and that it may look cumbersome
to some, but that's how our democracy works. I told the President that I am
committed to having a comprehensive immigration bill on my desk. And by
"comprehensive" I mean not only border security -- a bill that has border
security in it, a bill that has interior enforcement in it, but a bill that
has a worker permit program in it. And that's an important part of having a
border that works.

We don't want people sneaking into our country that are going to do jobs
Americans won't do, we want them coming in, in an orderly way -- which will
take pressure off of both our borders. And I explained to the President my
vision of the citizenship issue. I don't believe somebody should be allowed
to come into our country and get ahead of the line, the citizenship line.

And so I told President Fox that I think a program that will work is
somebody working on a temporary basis with a tamper-proof ID card. And if
they want to become a citizen, they can get in line, but not the head of
the line. And I reminded the President I called for an increase of green
cards the other day in Washington, D.C., as one way to help manage this
issue.

But at any rate, we're in the middle of a legislative process. I'm
optimistic we can get a bill done and I look forward to continuing to work
with members of both parties to get a bill done.

We also talked about President Fox's vision of working together in our
hemisphere, particularly in Central America. And he's proposed a very
innovative set of ideas to help stabilize and help encourage growth in
Central America, starting with an energy initiative. And of course we
appreciate your leadership on that issue and I look forward to sending some
of our experts down to listen to the ideas being talked about.

One idea, of course, we want to inject in the conversation is the idea of
developing alternatives to gasoline that comes from crude oil, that we'd
like to see more use of ethanol and how we can work together to increase
the crops necessary to become the feedstock for an ethanol production.

But at any rate, the point I'm making is, is that we've got a lot to do in
our relationship. President Fox is -- if people take an objective look at
his record, one of the things that I'm most proud of, and I think our
country must be most appreciative of is the stability of the Mexican
economy. It's important to have a trade partner that has got a stable
economy. And, Mr. President, you've done a fine job of providing stability
and increasing the net worth of your citizens, and that's important for the
American economy, as well. The more net worth there is in Mexico, the more
likely it is a Mexican may be wanting to buy a U.S. product -- and vice
versa, by the way.

And so our trade has made a difference in the lives of our citizens, and
your leadership has made a difference in the state of your economy.

So it's good to be with you again, sir. Thank you for your warm
hospitality.

PRESIDENT FOX: (As translated.) Thank you, President Bush. Thank you. I
would like to mention with great satisfaction how productive the relation
with the United States has been on bilateral basis, how the NAFTA, the Free
Trade Agreement of North America has been, in order to promote development
here in Mexico. And all this is part of a commitment and obligation of
generating opportunities, making sure that we can build up, create jobs,
create greater income, revenues for the families in Mexico, the maquilla,
the (inaudible) industry installed in the border of the country.

There is a deficit of 100,000 people. They want to give jobs to 100,000
people due to the great growth that's going on. And not only in this field,
but in many other fields, in many other areas we have been working. We
might say that something that appeared in the mass media in Mexico --
opposition of a state, clearly, very clearly in Mexico of the political
parties -- the Congress, the House of Representatives, the upper chamber,
the senators, the executive power, the President of the Republic, the
governors of the states, everybody, everybody has a very clear idea in the
topic of our relationship with the United States, and particularly
migration. It is a shared -- shared -- responsibility, and we understand
very clearly here in Mexico all the main characters of the political
scenario that we have to work so as to assume our responsibility.

Furthermore, we are working with Central American countries with the same
purpose. Let us assume shared responsibilities. It is very clear for us
that tomorrow the Congress of the United States might approve any sort of
bill, any sort of matter, migration wise. It is a sovereign decision, of
course, in the United States, but Mexico assumes its responsibilities to
work with passion, with commitment, diligently, with our economy and
developing opportunities for our people.

Our commitment with the citizenship is very broad. For example, with the
United States, we work closely with Homeland Security, with the Ministry of
the Interior here in Mexico, with Secretary Abascal. Secretary Abascal has
a total support of the President of the Republic, and the possibility of
adding the support of all the ministries and all the different federal
agencies that have to do with safety and security, so that we can give
steps forward in this topic in the border.

We want to have a safe border for the benefit of our citizens and for the
benefit of our relationship with the United States. Likewise, we have
intensified our actions with the OASISS Project. We are going after the
criminals that are trafficking with people that are, let's say, promoting
illegally the movement of citizens to the United States -- the alien
smugglers. We have stopped more than 120 of these criminals, alien
smugglers.

Likewise, in the southern border, as President Bush said, we are very
active, very active on what has to do with patrol, constructions of
different stations so as to stop migrants, illegal migrants, people that
are coming illegally to the Mexican territory, and sending them back to
their own countries with due respect to human rights. But we're doing an
efficient work in that sense.

Now, with the same type of orientation, the idea that we share with
President Bush to consider an important element to thrust development in
the Central American economies so that they can grow, they can generate
jobs, that through this project and through this program they can generate
actual opportunities in these countries, and this is a program of energy.

With this program, we want to achieve the construction of refineries for
oil, different docks to build natural gas, sources of electric energy on
the other hand, and conversion of natural gas -- liquid, fluid gas to
natural gas. It is a program that we shall approve next May, the Central
American countries and Mexico. And we are cordially inviting the United
States to attend to know, to observe, to see the project, so as to know,
how can we interact with the strength and the capacity of North America so
as to integrate a strong development and solid process in the Central
American countries.

We have spoken -- we have mentioned about the whole American canal. We have
to reactivate the working commission in this area so that we can discuss
ideas and give solutions for both parts, as we have always done, worked
together, have a dialogue, find solutions. And this is what we have
proposed in reference to the total or whole American channel.

Thus I want to thank President Bush for his attendance, for his presence,
and for his work, as well as all his team.

Tomorrow, in the trilateral meeting, we will be covering other topics --
the topic of safety and security, and then some other developing topics
amongst the three countries, the three partners that belong to this block
of both economy, trade, and association for our prosperity and security of
North America.

Thank you.

END 4:27 P.M. (Local)
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