    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [May 7, 1997]
    [Pages 560-564]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Address to the People of Mexico in Mexico City
    May 7, 1997

        Thank you, Mr. President, for the wisdom of your words, for the
    warmth of your personal expression, and for the great generosity with
    which the people of Mexico have received my wife and our delegation, the
    members of the administration and the Members of Congress. We thank all
    those who have been a part of that in the Mexican Government, throughout
    the political system, and citizens at large.
        I am honored to speak today in the heart of this magnificent
    capital, where Teotihuacan and Aztec civilizations flourished, where one
    of the world's greatest cities grew up centuries before the first
    English tents were pitched in Jamestown, Virginia, or Plymouth,
    Massachusetts. I'm frankly a little envious that Hillary got to spend an
    extra day here, and I want to thank those who are responsible for the
    wonderful welcome she received in the Yucatan. Almost 22 years ago now,
    Hillary and I came to Mexico for our honeymoon. Mexico won our hearts
    then, but now as then, mi encanta Mexico.
        I come here today to celebrate the ties that bind the United States
    and Mexico and to help set a course to strengthen them for the age of
    possibility before us as we enter the 21st century. Our nations and our
    hemisphere stand at a crossroads as hopeful as the time when Hidalgo and
    Morelos lit the torch of liberty for Mexico almost two centuries ago.
        Democracy has swept every country but one in the Americas, giving
    people a vote and a voice in their future. Decades of coups and civil
    wars have given way to stability, to peace, to free markets, and to the
    search for social justice and a cleaner environment. The electricity of
    change is surging throughout our hemisphere and nowhere more hopefully
    than Mexico.
        I congratulate the Mexican people for carrying forward bold
    political reforms that will lead in July to the most intensely contested
    elections in your history. We know from our own 220-year experiment that
    democracy is hard work. It must be defended every day. But it is worth
    the effort, for it has produced more opportunity for people to make the
    most of their own lives than all its rivals.
        Four years ago, in this very place, we began a grand common effort
    to secure democracy's gains in our hemisphere for all our people. On
    behalf of my administration, Vice President Gore here invited the
    nations of our hemisphere to the Summit of the Americas in Miami. There
    we set an ambitious agenda to create free trade throughout the
    hemisphere and to cooperate on a host of other issues with the goal of
    fulfilling the age-old dream of building a truly democratic and
    prosperous family of the Americas in the 21st century.
        Revolutionary forces of integration and technology and trade and
    travel and communications are shaping our times and bringing us all
    closer together. The stroke of a computer key sends ideas, information,
    and money across the planet at lightening speed. Every day we use
    products that are dreamed up in one country, financed in another,
    manufactured in a third, with parts made in still other countries, and
    then sold all over the world. Like it or not, we are becoming more
    interdependent. And we see that, too, on the negative side, as when a
    stock market crash, an environmental disaster, or a dread disease in one
    country sends shock waves deeply felt far beyond its borders.
        While economic integration is inevitable, its shape and its reach
    depend upon our response to it. In both our countries, there are some
    who would throw up walls of protection to ward off the challenge of
    change. But more and more, people here, in the United States, and
    throughout the Americas understand that openness, competition, and the
    flow of ideas and culture can improve the lives of all our people if we
    ensure that these forces work for and not against all our people.
        With our long border, rich history, and complex challenges, Mexico
    and the United States have a special responsibility to work together to
    seize the opportunities and defeat the dangers of this time. Our
    partnership for freedom and democracy and for prosperity and our
    partnership against drugs, organized crime, environmental decay, and
    social injustice is fundamental to the future of the American people and
    to the future of the Mexican people.

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        To succeed, this partnership must be rooted in a spirit of mutual
    respect. Your great leader Benito Juarez, whose statue stands not far
    from the White House in Washington, said, ``Respect for the rights of
    others is peace.'' Today I reaffirm to the people of Mexico: We embrace
    the wisdom of Juarez. We seek a peaceful, prosperous partnership filled
    with respect and dignity.
        Four years ago, together, we led the fight for NAFTA. Many people in
    both our countries painted a dark picture of lost jobs and boarded-up
    factories should NAFTA prevail. Well, they were wrong. NAFTA is working,
    working for you and working for the American people.
        In 3 short years, and despite Mexico's worst recession in this
    century, trade between our nations has grown nearly 60 percent, as
    President Zedillo said. Mexico is our third largest trading partner,
    just behind Japan, which has an economy 15 times larger. Our exports to
    Mexico are 37 percent higher than before NAFTA, an all-time high in
    spite of the economic difficulties here.
        But for Mexico, NAFTA's benefits are just as great. Two and a half
    years ago, the financial crisis that struck Mexico wrought real and
    profound hardship to your people as jobs vanished and inflation
    skyrocketed. The storm hit only days after President Zedillo took
    office. He might have simply complained that he got a big dose of bad
    luck, but instead he responded with vision and courage. By keeping to
    the path of reform and the blueprint of NAFTA, he lessened the impact of
    the recession. Though real hardships remain, Mexico has made a
    remarkable turnaround. Since the crisis, you have created one million
    new jobs, cut inflation by more than half, and regained the confidence
    of international investors.
        Now, compare this with the economic crisis of 1981 and '82, when
    Mexico sharply raised its tariffs and followed a different course. Then,
    it took 7 long years for Mexico to return to the financial markets; this
    time, only 7 months. Then, it took 4 years for your economy to recover
    the lost ground; this time, only a year after the crisis, Mexico grew by
    more than 5 percent and is expected to grow strongly this year, too.
        You have endured punishing setbacks, but America is proud to have
    worked with you from the very beginning, enlisting international support
    for a loan package that safeguarded hundreds of thousands of jobs in
    both our countries, calmed emerging markets throughout Latin America and
    the world, and when Mexico paid the loan back, earned the respect and
    admiration of the entire world. I congratulate you on this course.
        Of course, the ultimate test of our economic partnership is not in
    big numbers but in human impact: the electronic workers of Mexico's Baja
    Peninsula whose new jobs mean better health care and pensions and more
    education for their children; the hundreds of thousands of Mexican women
    who now have mammograms because American-made diagnostic equipment has
    become more affordable to you; and all the American workers with good
    high-wage jobs based on our trade with you.
        NAFTA has also become an important tool for improving the
    environment and the well-being of workers. Its institutions are working
    to clean up pollution in the border region, with four treatment plants
    already under construction and more to come. Its labor agreements have
    created a new awareness of workers' rights and labor conditions in both
    our countries.
        We must accelerate the pace of these efforts to reach more people
    and more communities. And we must include more nations in our
    partnership so that we can achieve the goal we set out at the Summit of
    the Americas of a free trade area of the Americas. That is why I'm
    working with Congress to gain support for fast-track authority and why
    I'm coming back to Latin America twice in the next few months.
        As we celebrate these accomplishments, we must also do everything in
    our power to assure that the benefits and the burdens of change are
    fairly shared. The most powerful tool for doing that, plainly, is
    education, giving our people the skills they need to compete and
    succeed.
        At the Miami summit, Mexico took the responsibility of leading a
    hemispheric education initiative. Working with Brazil, Chile, and the
    United States, you have set our sights on lifting standards and bringing
    new methods and technologies to classrooms throughout the hemisphere. We
    can rekindle the passion for education that swept this country after
    your revolution. Your great poet Alfonso Reyes described that moment as
    ``a grand crusade for learning that electrified the people. Nothing
    equal to it has ever been seen in the Americas.''

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        Let us see something equal to it and greater. Let us renew this
    crusade. And let us remember--as my wife has said to citizens on every
    continent, in distant villages and large cities--this crusade for
    education must include young women as well as young men, on equal terms.
    And let us resolve to make this crusade a shining light of our next
    Summit of the Americas next year in Santiago.
        In Miami, at the first summit, we also reaffirmed that we cannot be
    responsible stewards of freedom unless we are also responsible stewards
    of our natural resources, our hemisphere's land and air and water as
    well as the rich texture of plant and animal life they support.
        Over the long run, the development of democracy and a prosperous
    economy requires the sustainable development of our natural resources.
    That is why we have put the protection of the environment right where it
    belongs, at the heart of our hemispheric agenda. That is the course we
    charted together in Rio, in Miami, in Santa Cruz, and one we must pursue
    further in Santiago.
        Trade, education, and the environment are critical pieces of the
    greater mosaic of our relationship, designed to turn our 2,000-mile
    border into a vibrant source of growth and jobs and open exchange. We're
    also building a bridge between Brownsville and Matamoros and roads to
    connect our people, streamlining cargo transit with high-tech scanners,
    improving water supplies for the area's inhabitants, and through our
    Border 21 initiative, giving local communities a strong voice in the
    future of the dynamic living space they share.
        As our cooperation grows closer, so do our people. For America, that
    means pride in the fact that we are one of the most diverse democracies
    in the world. That diversity will be one of our great strengths in the
    global society of the 21st century. And Mexican-Americans are a crucial
    part of our diversity and our national pride. Now more than 12 million
    strong, they have helped to make the United States the fifth largest
    Hispanic nation in the world.
        Mexican-Americans are contributing to every dimension of American
    life. In Congress, they have written the laws of our land. Just
    yesterday, Ambassador Bill Richardson, whose mother came from this city,
    was working to bring peace in central Africa, and every day he is
    America's voice at the United Nations. Our administration draws strength
    from many other remarkable Mexican-Americans, including several who are
    here with me, our Energy Secretary, Federico Pena; my Director of Public
    Liaison, Maria Echaveste; my Congressional Liaison, Janet Murguia. I am
    also pleased to have in our party two distinguished Members of Congress
    who are Mexican-Americans, Xavier Becerra of California and Silvestre
    Reyes of Texas and four other distinguished elected officials who
    represent large number of Mexican-Americans and who care deeply about
    our partnership, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Senator Jeff
    Bingaman of New Mexico, Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona, and
    Governor Robert Miller of Nevada.
        Last year nearly 160,000 Mexicans immigrated legally to America,
    bringing their talents, their energies, their aspirations. They've
    played by the rules. And we, for our part, must make sure that the
    system treats them fairly and gives them the chance to live up to their
    hopes and dreams.
        But to maintain an immigration policy that is generous, fair, safe,
    and orderly, we must also take effective action to stop illegal
    immigration. We are a nation of immigrants and of laws. Just as those
    who obey our laws are welcome, those who break them must face the
    consequences. Our new immigration law will help us to achieve these
    goals. In applying it and in our overall approach to immigration, we
    will balance control with common sense and compassion.
        I am very pleased that the balanced budget agreement I reached with
    our Congress last week includes a significant restoration of welfare
    benefits to legal immigrants. I will continue to work with Congress to
    correct some aspects of our immigration law. We will ensure respect for
    human rights and seek to apply the law humanely, with special concern
    for children and families. There will be no mass deportations or no
    discrimination. And we will continue to support Mexico's efforts to
    create new opportunities here, so that no one feels compelled to leave
    home just to earn a living for his or her family.
        In the end, that is the answer. But I ask you to remember and work
    with us on the central premise. We have a generous immigration policy,
    perhaps the most generous in the world, but to make it work we must be a
    nation of laws.
        This moment of great promise for us is, frankly, also one of peril.
    The great irony of this time is that the forces of global integration
    have

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    also unleashed powerful sources of disintegration that use open borders
    and technology and modern communications to strike at the very heart of
    civilized societies, our families, our institutions, our very lives.
        For us, the greatest of these scourges is that of illegal drug
    trafficking. The costs to both of us of illegal drugs are staggering. In
    America, every year drugs kill 14,000 people and cost our country almost
    $70 billion for crime, prisons, lost work, wounded bodies, and ruined
    lives. Every year, our law enforcement officials arrest one million
    people on drug charges. In Mexico, President Zedillo has called
    narcotics trafficking the greatest threat to national security, the
    biggest hazard to social health, and the bloodiest source of violence.
        Throughout our hemisphere, we see how drug cartels threaten the
    fabric of entire societies. They corrupt or murder law enforcement
    officials and the judiciary, take over legitimate businesses and banks,
    spread violence to offices and homes, to streets and to playgrounds.
        Drugs are not simply a Mexican problem or an American problem; they
    are our common problem. The enormous demand for drugs in America must be
    stemmed. We have just a little less than 5 percent of the world's
    population, yet we consume one-third of the world's cocaine, most of
    which comes from Mexico. The money we spend on illegal drugs fuels
    narcotraffickers who, in turn, attack your police and prosecutors and
    prey on your institutions. We must face this curse together, because we
    cannot defeat it alone. My friends, the battle against drugs must unite
    our people, not divide them.
        We must fight back together, and we must prevail. In the United
    States we have begun the largest antidrug effort in our history. More
    than two-thirds of its $16 billion budget will go to attacking our
    domestic drug problem. We've cut casual drug use by 50 percent in
    America, but tragically, among young people under 18 drug use has
    doubled. We're reaching out to young people with an unprecedented
    effort, a public education campaign to teach that drugs are wrong,
    illegal, and deadly. We're supporting successful neighborhood strategies
    like community policing that are making our streets and schools safer
    and more drug-free. We're punishing drugpushers with tougher sentences
    and working with our partners abroad to destroy drugs at the source or
    stop them in transit.
        Here in Mexico, you must continue your brave fight against illegal
    drugs. Already you have shown real advances in drug eradication. You've
    enacted strong new measures to combat money laundering and organized
    crime. You've destroyed more drug labs and landing strips and seized
    more drugs, including more than 10 tons of cocaine just days ago. And
    last week, you resolved to rebuild your drug enforcement agency on a
    firmer foundation.
        I know the hardship and sacrifice this has caused. More than 200
    Mexican police officers died last year because of drug violence. As
    terrible as this toll is, the price of giving up and giving in would be
    higher. Let us resolve to redouble our efforts, not by pointing fingers
    but by joining hands.
        Yesterday, President Zedillo and I took an important step forward
    when we declared the U.S.-Mexican alliance against drugs. Based on
    mutual respect and common sense, we will strengthen our attack on drug
    production, trafficking, and consumption. We will crack down harder on
    the key problems of money laundering and arms trafficking. The future of
    our children depends upon these efforts and depends more on our
    determination to continue the fight. We must not let our children down.
        Our alliance against drugs is but one of many elements in our
    cooperation for the coming century. Yesterday, the President and I
    received the report of our Binational Commission. From wiping out
    tuberculosis in our border States to protecting endangered species in
    the Pacific, to increasing educational opportunity with more Fulbright
    scholarships, the scope of our joint efforts has become as large as the
    continent we share.
        Fifty years ago, President Harry Truman came to Mexico. His visit
    was a turning point between our people. He spoke of the difficulties in
    our past and of the need for us to work more closely. He said, ``I
    refuse to be discouraged by apparent difficulties. Difficulties are a
    challenge to men of determination.'' In the face of our difficulties, we
    must be men and women of determination. We can bridge the divides of
    culture, history, and geography to achieve Juarez's noble vision of
    respect and peace.
        Rooted in the rule of law, rooted in prosperity for all who will
    work for it, rooted in good health and a clean environment, rooted in
    modern education and timeless values, the bright

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    promise of a new century lies before us. Let us embrace it together.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:21 a.m. at the National Auditorium, and
    his remarks were broadcast live on Mexican television. In his remarks,
    he referred to President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico.