It's Cuba's Turn to Make Overture, Obama Says

LAURA MECKLER DAVID LUHNOW

MEXICO CITY -- President Barack Obama said his administration had gone as far as it would for now in easing U.S. policy toward Cuba, and that he would wait for reciprocal gestures from Havana before taking further action.

This week, the U.S. lifted restrictions on family travel and remittances to the island nation and moved to open telecommunications links, but the president declined to lift restrictions on travel by other Americans or to call for a lifting of the half-century-old U.S. embargo.

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U.S. President Barack Obama waves next to Mexican President Felipe Calderón during the welcoming ceremony at Los Pinos presidential residence in Mexico City.

His steps weren't enough for his Mexican host, President Felipe Calderón, and the U.S. leader is likely to face pressure to move further when he attends the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago starting Friday.

"The embargo has been in place since before President Obama and I were born," Mr. Calderón said at a joint news conference here Thursday with Mr. Obama. "And the Cuban regime is still there. I think it's time to ask if maybe the strategy hasn't worked too well. I don't believe that it has."

Mr. Obama said he had already taken significant steps. "I think what you saw was a show of good faith on the part of the United States that we want to recast our relationship," he said. "Having taken the first step I think it's very much in our interests to see whether Cuba is also ready to change."

He said that the Cuban government could take any variety of steps in a sign of good will. "I'm optimistic that progress can be made if there is a spirit that's looking forward rather than backward," Mr. Obama said. "We want to be open to engagement but we're going to do so in a systematic way."

In Cumana, Venezuela, Cuban President Raúl Castro replied that his government is willing to discuss "everything" with Washington, including human rights, political prisoners and freedom of the press, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Castro said Havana has "sent word to the U.S. government in private and in public" that it is open to talking about anything, as long as it is "on equal terms."

President Obama Heads to Mexico

1:22

President Obama meets with Mexican president Felipe Calderon in Mexico City to talk about restoring and sustaining economic growth in Mexico and the U.S. Video courtesy of Fox News.

Going South

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Associated Press

President Gerald Ford visits Magdalena, Mexico, on Oct. 22, 1974.

• U.S. Pledges to Stem Flow of Guns
• Discuss: Violence in Mexico in the next year

Some analysts in Latin America argue that Cuba is never going to reciprocate to U.S. gestures, because the Communist regime uses the U.S. embargo as a ready-made excuse to explain the island's woes to its people. Mr. Calderón encouraged Mr. Obama to take bolder steps anyway.

At their news conference, Mr. Obama also backed away from immediate action on two of his campaign promises -- to push for reinstatement of the assault-weapons ban, something Mexico would like to see, and to try to renegotiate labor and environmental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a move Mexico opposes.

On assault weapons, Mr. Obama said he still supports the ban but recognizes that it is a tough political battle that could take time. "None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy, and so what we've focused on is how we can improve our enforcement of existing laws," he said.

For his part, Mr. Calderón said he understood it is a "thorny issue," but asked American policy makers to bear in mind that those weapons "are today aimed at Mexican government officials and citizens."

On Nafta, Mr. Obama said that given the current economic crisis, now was not the time to slow trade by opening the trade deal to revision. He added that any move to do so should proceed in a "careful and deliberate" way. "We want to encourage trade, not discourage it," he said.

Mr. Obama also promised U.S. support for the Mexican war against drug cartels, saying he greatly admires Mr. Calderón's unprecedented crackdown. The U.S. must support its neighbor by working to reduce demand for drugs and stemming the illegal flow of guns south, he said. Nine in 10 guns confiscated in Mexico came from the U.S., both men said.

"I will not pretend this is Mexico's responsibility alone," Mr. Obama said.

He said he would push the Senate to ratify a Latin American arms-trafficking treaty that was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 but never ratified. It aims to curb guns and ammunition trafficking, and an administration official said the U.S. has been abiding by it even though it hasn't been ratified.

Mr. Calderón said Mexico's crackdown on drug gangs was already bearing fruit, with a sharp decline in killings associated with the trade during the first three months of this year compared with the last three months of 2008.

In the same way that Mr. Obama said the U.S. bore responsibility for the demand for drugs that drives the trade, Mr. Calderón also said Mexico bears responsibility for its citizens that go to the U.S. to look for work illegally. "We are working hard to create the kinds of opportunities here in Mexico so that people don't have to leave," he said.