April 16 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama arrived in Mexico City for meetings with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, on ways the two neighbors and economic partners can grapple with a trade standoff and escalating drug violence.
Obama is making his first trip as president to Latin America, a journey that includes the Summit of the Americas starting tomorrow in Trinidad and Tobago. In their separate meeting, he and Calderon are likely to discuss border security, a conflict over Mexican trucks delivering goods inside the U.S., the economy and energy-related issues, including climate change.
Obama’s visit with Calderon is meant to reinforce his commitment to working with Mexico on issues that pose a threat to the economic and public security of both countries.
“It is absolutely critical that the United States joins as a full partner” with Mexico in the battle against drug cartels, Obama said at a welcoming ceremony with Calderon. The two nations must “stand side by side in order to promote common security and common prosperity,” he said.
Underscoring the intensity of the drug war, Mexican officials said 16 people were killed in a shootout in the southwestern part of the country just hours before Obama arrived, Agence-France Presse reported.
More Help Needed
While Mexican officials have said they are pleased with Obama’s attention to the country, they are seeking more support in the drug fight and an end to the trucking dispute.
“This administration is starting to move in the right direction,” Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview last week in Washington, referring to Obama’s help on drug violence. “Is it all that we need? Of course not. It’s a process that needs to be built upon.”
Mexican officials have been pressing the U.S. to do more to staunch the illegal flow of weapons into Mexico.
“Arms trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico must be stopped immediately,” said Jesus Ortega, leader of Mexico’s opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution. “This has heightened the violence in our country, and previous U.S. governments have done practically nothing to stop it.”
Mexican cartels sell $13.8 billion a year worth of drugs to U.S. users, according to White House figures. Rival gangs killed more than 6,200 people last year in Mexico, double the total of the year before.
Targeting Officials
Drug violence in Mexico, largely confined in the past to fights among factions of drug organizations or between the cartels, has spread to attacks on public officials to “break the will of the government to fight against the cartels,” Anthony Placido, intelligence chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said at a briefing in Washington yesterday.
Obama, who shortly before his inauguration in January met with Calderon in Washington, last month bolstered U.S. efforts to help Mexico stem violence by increasing the number of law- enforcement officers at the border.
At the welcoming ceremony, Obama praised Calderon’s efforts and said the U.S. would work on stemming the flow of drugs to the north as well as cash and guns going into Mexico.
The latest initiatives were crafted to work with programs funded by the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion measure approved by Congress last year.
The mix of crime-fighting equipment sent to Mexico under the program and training provided law officers is “adequate,” Sarukhan said. “We would like to see more support. I think the administration has already started to move in that direction in shutting down the flow of guns and cash to Mexico.”
Financial Sanctions
Obama yesterday designated three Mexican crime organizations as subject to a law that permits the Treasury Department to block financial transactions or seize assets. It also allows the government to prosecute people or firms in the U.S. providing support for criminal enterprises.
Obama has also appointed former Justice Department official Alan Bersin as assistant homeland security secretary charged with overseeing security along the U.S.-Mexico border.
On trade, Calderon will urge Obama to push Congress to let Mexican trucks deliver products inside the U.S. Lawmakers last month ended a program that allowed some trucks to cross into the U.S. Mexico retaliated by imposing $2.4 billion in import tariffs on U.S. goods.
Trucking Issue
Mexico’s government will ask Obama to allow all the country’s 18-wheelers to operate across the border, Deputy Transportation Minister Humberto Trevino said in an interview. Mexico sees an opportunity for opening access because the Obama administration has expressed a willingness to revive the truck- access program, he said.
The government also is encouraged that 140 U.S. business, food and agricultural groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, last week called on Obama to settle the feud, according to Trevino.
Trade between the two countries totaled $368 billion in 2008, making Mexico the third-largest U.S. trading partner after Canada and China, according to U.S. data.
The administration doesn’t expect any breakthroughs on the trucking dispute during the visit, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with the president.
“We’re continuing to work on that issue and get an agreement that upholds our commitment” under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Gibbs said. “That’s something that we’re working on with members of Congress.”
Longtime Dispute
The conflict dates from 1995, when the U.S. refused to implement a cross-border trucking plan agreed to under Nafta amid opposition from labor unions. The rules would have let Mexican trucks haul goods to a U.S. destination and pick up cargo to return to Mexico.
“The United States has been in noncompliance of Nafta for 15 years,” Sarukhan said.
Sarukhan predicts that Obama will get the same lavish attention in Mexico that he received on his recent trip to Europe. “The people of Mexico City will turn out onto the streets to try to get a glimpse of him,” he said.
Still, Obama is under pressure to improve relations with the region, particularly as many Latin Americans were disappointed in former President George W. Bush, some political observers said.
Bush, a former Texas governor, “expressed some interest in Mexico before becoming president” yet wasn’t “able to follow through,” said Abraham Lowenthal, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
“Obama has even less experience in Latin America than George W. Bush had,” he said. “On the other hand, he’s a very different sort, and he’s obviously very internationally minded, has an international DNA and is very much of a quick study and a learner.”
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