    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [May 1, 1997]
    [Pages 521-525]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Interview With Jacobo Goldstein of CNN Radio Noticias
    May 1, 1997

    Mexico-U.S. Antidrug Efforts

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, let's start with Mexico. You're going
    down there on Monday. The news today is that Mexico just dismantled its
    antidrug agency and has put a new agency in place with new trainees.
    Will this stop the corruption that has been so rampant?
        The President. Well, I think there's a good chance that it will
    improve things. Keep in mind the Mexicans have a big challenge. This is
    not just something they--this cooperation we're undertaking in the
    antidrug area from Mexico's point of view is not primarily for the
    United

    [[Page 522]]

    States. Of course, we want to reduce the number of illegal drugs coming
    into America. Primarily, it's for Mexico. It's to preserve the social,
    political, and economic integrity of the country.
        And I think this is a very good first step. I've had a good
    relationship with President Zedillo and with Mexico since I became
    President. I've done everything I could do to try to make sure America
    is a good neighbor and a good partner for the future. And I think this
    will enable us to work more closely together in that area.

    Elections in Mexico

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, Mexico is going to have midterm
    elections that are going to be watched throughout the world. And I know
    President Zedillo has been trying to change some of old time and change
    the structure of his party. What are your expectations of these midterm
    elections? It's the first time the mayor of Mexico City is going to be
    elected.
        The President. I don't know. My only expectations are that they'll
    be free and fair and that they will express the will of the Mexican
    people and that we will support that, whatever that is.

    NAFTA and Trade Expansion

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, NAFTA, according to the numbers, seems
    to be working. Do you expect the U.S. Congress to help push NAFTA to
    Chile fast-track? And you have spoken, and your people have spoken, how
    important Latin America is as far as a trading partner, but does
    Congress share your view, sir?
        The President. I believe a majority do. I am, frankly, disappointed
    and surprised that there is still so much opposition to expanding fast-
    track. NAFTA has been a big success for us, with Canada and with Mexico.
    It has helped the Mexican economy to grow. It has brought our two
    countries closer together. When Mexico had a difficult time
    economically, the United States made the loan that--I made the decision
    to make a loan to Mexico, and they paid the loan back early with
    interest and a profit. And it's working well. It's creating more jobs
    for Mexico, more jobs for the United States.
        And I think we would be very, very, very shortsighted if we did not
    extend fast-track, go down and involve Chile, and then eventually
    complete the promise of the Summit of the Americas--involve the Andean
    nations, the MERCOSUR nations, all the nations, Latin America, Central
    America, Caribbean in the trade area of the Americas. That's what I want
    to do, and I'm going to keep pushing for it.

    Nomination for Ambassador to Mexico

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, you placed great importance on the
    relations with Mexico, personal relation between you and President
    Zedillo. And now the word is out, you're going to be naming a very
    famous politician of the other party, the Governor of Massachusetts,
    Governor William Weld. How will this create better relations between you
    and Mexico?
        The President. Well, if Governor Weld's appointment goes through, I
    would expect it to greatly strengthen our relationships because I think
    that they will have a lot in common and that the three of us will all
    have a good relationship, which will facilitate our countries growing
    closer together and working better together.
        Mr. Goldstein. Will he have direct access to you and Madeleine
    Albright?
        The President. Oh, absolutely. I know him well. I mean, he is a
    member of the other party, and when he ran against Senator Kerry last
    year, I worked very hard for Senator Kerry. But we have a good personal
    relationship. He's a highly intelligent man, and he and I are clearly on
    the same wavelength in terms of what we believe our policy toward Mexico
    and, indeed, toward all Latin America should be.

    Human Rights

        Mr. Goldstein. Finally, Mr. President, I want to touch slightly the
    issue of human rights. There has been some criticism of violation of
    human rights in Mexico. Will the subject of human rights be broached
    during the bilateral meeting, or will you deal--with President Zedillo?
        The President. I expect we will discuss everything that is out there
    to be discussed in our relationship. We have a very open and candid
    relationship. If he has some problems with the United States, he feels
    free to raise them with me. And we'll talk through everything I think we
    should talk through.

    Immigration

        Mr. Goldstein. Migrations--the new migration laws have created a
    huge stir in Mexico and Central America, also--the issue, that will come
    up?

    [[Page 523]]

        The President.  It will come up, and it should. I would like to make
    three points. First of all, there were provisions dealing with legal
    immigrants tacked onto the welfare reform bill that had nothing to do
    with welfare reform, that I strongly opposed, and that will have to be
    significantly changed if we are going to get a budget agreement here
    with the Republican Congress. I have told them that, and we're working
    hard on it.
        Secondly, with regard to the law dealing with illegal immigration, I
    know that there are some questions about that law in Latin America. But
    let me point out, the main thing the law does is to give us extra tools
    to control our borders, to deal with illegal immigrants in our
    workplaces and who come into the criminal justice system.
        We are going to work very hard to avoid any draconian interpretation
    of the law that would lead to any kind of mass deportations or anything
    of that kind. But keep in mind, the United States admitted last year
    960,000 legal immigrants. We are now the fifth largest Hispanic country
    in the world, with 22 million Hispanic-Americans here. So we are
    committed to open immigration and to having more people here from the
    Americas, but we have to do it in a legal way that has some discipline
    and order and integrity to it. And we will try to do it in a fair and
    balanced way.

    Mexico-U.S. Trade and NAFTA

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, there was some concern in Mexico when
    Mexican trucks were not allowed--truckers to drive in this country. I'm
    sure that issue will also come up.
        The President. It will come up. President Zedillo would bring it up
    if I didn't. We will--we're trying to work that out. Our concerns here
    are basically safety concerns, and we have an obligation under NAFTA,
    the United States does, to permit Mexican truckers into the United
    States if they meet the standards that we apply to our people. And we're
    trying to work out exactly how we define that and resolve it with the
    Mexicans.
        There have been actually relatively few trade disputes. This is now
    a $130 billion trade relationship. It's a huge relationship. And we have
    two or three relatively minor matters--[inaudible]--all but one. And I
    think we have to work very hard to try to rectify the economic harm done
    to the Caribbean countries inadvertently by Congress when they adopted
    NAFTA but wouldn't go along with my suggestion to give the same
    treatment to the Caribbean countries.
        Mr. Goldstein. Excuse me, by Caribbean you mean Central America and
    the Caribbean Basin?
        The President. Caribbean Basin, absolutely. All the Caribbean Basin
    countries. We did not--I don't think the Congress meant to hurt them by
    passing NAFTA, but I told them what I was afraid would happen. I asked
    them to at least maintain the status quo, so that they wouldn't lose any
    ground compared to Mexico because Mexico's great gains have come from
    the labors of the Mexican people and from the transfer of some
    production from Asia back to Mexico. They never intended to take
    anything away from the Central America and Caribbean countries.
        So we have to rectify that because those countries have to have a
    chance to grow. Otherwise, the more successful Mexico is in its antidrug
    efforts, the more vulnerable the Caribbean countries will be--especially
    the Caribbean, even more than Central America. They will become even
    more vulnerable to drug traffickers because they won't be able to make a
    living there. So we've got to rectify this, and I'm hoping to resolve it
    with this session of Congress.

    Immigration

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, the Central American countries will
    also bring up the immigration issue because El Salvador, Guatemala,
    Nicaragua, Honduras--they were all deeply affected in the eighties
    during the liberation or revolution, the civil wars of the eighties.
        The President. They--because of the unique status that they bore
    when they came into this country, they are in a position different from
    legal immigrants or plainly illegal immigrants. They are in a different
    position. And we've already had one discussion, interestingly enough,
    about that today. We're trying to work that out in a way that seems fair
    and humane and balanced, and I hope we can.

    Hostage Situation in Peru

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, I would like to ask you two questions
    as they're pushing me out. One has to do with Peru. You were very much
    involved, your country was, with Japan during the hostage crisis, which
    came to a conclusion a few days ago.
        The President. Yes.

    [[Page 524]]

        Mr. Goldstein. There seems to be some rumblings about some possible
    human rights violations when the army barged in and saved the hostages.
    Do you know anything about it or----
        The President. No.
        Mr. Goldstein. ----have you had any conversations with Mr. Fujimori?
        The President. I do not know what the facts are on that. I do know
    that the Government of Peru was very patient for a long time, that the
    people who took the hostages were terrorists who threatened their lives,
    and that it was a good thing and remarkable that only one of them was--
    life was lost in the rescue attempt. But I do not know what the facts
    were about what happened on the compound.

    Extraterritorial Impact of Sanctions

        Mr. Goldstein. Mr. President, finally, you know Cuba is an issue.
    Helms-Burton has created a rift--between Latin America and the United
    States because of Cuba and Helms-Burton. Do you visualize any
    circumstances under which Helms-Burton could be lifted? And do you feel
    this will not threaten your commercial relations and political relations
    with the Latin American nations?
        The President. Well, first of all, I think the biggest problem with
    Helms-Burton, vis-a-vis Latin America, may well have been solved by the
    resolution we made with the European Union about the interpretation of
    Helms-Burton. And I think if we look at what happened with the European
    Union, what we want the other democracies of Central America and
    Caribbean and South America to do is to work with us on promoting
    openness, human rights, and freedom in Cuba, and we need to do that
    every way we can.
        Now, under the statute, the Helms-Burton statute, about the only
    agreements I can work out are the ones that--like we worked out with
    Europe. That law supplanted a bill that I liked very much, the Cuba
    Democracy Act, which gave the United States the flexibility to be both
    more open and tougher with Cuba, depending on the facts. But that law
    was passed by Mr. Castro himself. He passed the law as surely as if he'd
    been here voting on it when he shot down those planes and killed those
    innocent people.
        So we're doing the best we can with the law we have, but we all need
    to keep working for greater openness in Cuba. I think the only prospects
    for a change in the law would be those that are, again, completely
    within the control of the Cuban Government and of Mr. Castro. I mean, if
    he were to evidence some changes, then he might get some changed
    attitudes here. But we've got to see what happens.

    NAFTA and Trade Expansion

        Mr. Goldstein. Finally, Mr. President, you--during your first term,
    you fought very hard for NAFTA against your own party. You fought very
    hard to save Mexico--the economic bailout--against people of your own
    party including. Will you fight as hard now that you don't need to run
    for reelection? Political considerations aside, will you fight just as
    hard to make sure that Latin America has a free trade agreement?
        The President. Oh, sure.
        Mr. Goldstein. It may take about a year or two. And are you
    optimistic you can do it by the year 2005, as they said in Miami at the
    Summit of the Americas?
        The President. Well, yes, I will fight just as hard. And I will
    certainly--there are no political considerations for me one way or the
    other now. I would like to point out we did get quite a large number of
    Democrats who supported NAFTA and that the leadership in both parties
    supported me with the Mexican loan.
        I'm quite concerned that there may have been an erosion of support
    for the free trade concept in the Americas, not just in the Democratic
    Party but in the Republican Party as well. And I find this surprising.
    Here we are now at the pinnacle of our economic success, political
    influence in the world, but the only way we can exercise our political
    influence for good is to become involved with other countries. And it
    disappoints me when I hear Americans who seemed to be reluctant to do
    that. I think that's a mistake. And so I'm going to try to persuade them
    to do the right thing from my point of view, and I believe we'll win.

    Budget Agreement

        Mr. Goldstein. And will you get a budget agreement? Everybody in the
    basement asked me to ask you----
        The President. I don't know. I hope so.
        Mr. Goldstein. Thank you, sir.

    Note: The interview began at 11:42 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House. In his remarks, the President referred to President Ernesto

    [[Page 525]]

    Zedillo of Mexico; President Alberto Fujimori of Peru; and President
    Fidel Castro of Cuba. A tape was not available for verification of the
    content of this interview.