    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2001, Book II)]
    [September 6, 2001]
    [Pages 1082-1084]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the University of Toledo in Toledo
    September 6, 2001

        Thank you all very much. Governor, thank you
    very much. It's a great honor to be back in Ohio. Today I come bringing
    a special visitor, un amigo de mio y tambien un amigo de los Estados
    Unidos. It's an honor to bring a good friend of mine and a friend of our
    country, President Vicente Fox, to Ohio. I have
    the honor of introducing him. But before I do so, I wanted to introduce
    him to Ohio.
        Mr. President, Ohio is an extraordinary
    State. It's a State full of decent and compassionate and hard-working
    people--Toledo. Not all the wisdom exists in Washington, DC. There's a
    lot of wisdom in towns like Toledo, Ohio. And it was my honor that the
    President had accepted not only the invitation for the first state
    dinner I had as your President but agreed to travel with me to the
    heartland. So I want to thank you all for a warm welcome.
        I want to thank so very much the leadership of the University of
    Toledo and the students who are here, the faculty that have made this
    event possible. Thank you for your hospitality. Mr. Mayor, thank you for your hospitality as well. It's a
    thrill to be traveling with members of the United States congressional
    delegation, some of whom do what I tell them to do--[laughter]--some of
    whom are a little hard to persuade, but all of whom love America and all
    of whom bring honor to the office they hold. Thank you all very much for
    coming with me today.
        I'm very proud to be traveling with one of my Cabinet Secretaries, a
    man who is doing a fabulous job at HUD. His name is Mel
    Martinez. When he was a young boy, his
    mother and daddy put him on a boat--I guess it was an airplane--to come
    to America from Cuba. They weren't ever sure whether they would see him
    again. They were sure, however, they were sending him to a place that
    loved freedom, a place where you can be anything you want to be in
    America. Today, this good man is in the Cabinet. It shows what a
    wonderful country we have and shows what a great man Mel Martinez is.
    Thank you for coming, Mel.
        We've got distinguished members from the Mexican delegation
    traveling with us. We've got Ambassadors traveling with us. And we've
    even got the Treasurer of the United States
    traveling with us. My friend Rosario Marin is now the Treasurer of this
    great country. Please welcome her and all of the members of the Mexican
    delegation as well.
        We just had a really good visit in Washington. It was a commitment
    to friendship. It's important for my fellow Americans to understand my
    foreign policy, and it starts with this: Good foreign policy says you
    want your neighborhood to be peaceful and

    [[Page 1083]]

    prosperous; a good foreign policy starts with being friends with your
    neighbors. We're friends with our neighbors to the North, and we're very
    good friends with our neighbors to the South, the Mexicanos.
        Friends hold each other with respect--treat each other with respect
    and hold each other in high esteem. And the speaker I'm going to
    introduce is a man I hold in high esteem. Friends are willing to have
    honest dialog. And we've had a series of honest dialogs over the last 24
    hours, had a frank discussion, but this isn't our first discussion.
    We've been discussing common opportunities and common problems for
    months. And as a result, our relationship has never been better and
    never been stronger.
        I know there are some in this world and our country who want to
    build walls between Mexico and the United States. I want to remind
    people: Fearful people build walls; confident people tear them down. And
    I'm confident that a strong relationship--and I'm confident that good
    neighbors and a strong relationship is in our Nation's best interests.
    I've seen it firsthand. Trade between Mexico and the United States has
    grown to a quarter of a trillion dollars. That means jobs in the United
    States, and as importantly, that means jobs in Mexico.
        There's a lot of discussion about trade. I can't tell you how
    hopeful trade is and how important it is. It's not only important for
    job-seeking Americans; it's incredibly important for Mexico to grow and
    to prosper, to develop a middle class for people in Mexico to be able to
    find work close to home.
        Oh, I know there's a lot of talk about Mexican laborers coming to
    the United States. But I want to remind my fellow citizens of this fact:
    Family values do not stop at the Rio Bravo. There are mothers and dads
    in Mexico who love their children just as much as mothers and dads in
    America do. And if there are a mother or dad who can't find work,
    worried about food on the table, they're going to come and find work in
    America.
        And what we want to do is to have a trading relationship that
    encourages job creation in America but job creation in Mexico as well.
    We want Mexico to grow a middle class so the citizens of Mexico can find
    work to feed their families just like the citizens of America can find
    work to feed their families. We're talking about migration issues. It's
    a complex subject, but one that this country of ours must confront and
    have an open dialog about. And we've made good progress on that
    important issue.
        I want to tell you, President Fox is doing
    everything in his power to fight crime and drugs, and we're cooperating
    with him. But I also want to remind my fellow Americans, it's important
    to fight the supply of drugs. But we have an obligation inside this
    country to fight to reduce the demand for drugs as well. We need to tell
    our children: Don't use drugs; make the right choices in life. We're
    working hard on environmental issues on our border. But our fellow
    citizens must understand that there's more than just economics that is
    important or crime-fighting that's important in our relationship with
    Mexico.
        We share values with Mexico. They're common values, values that
    unite people, whether they live in the United States or whether they
    live in Mexico. And what are those values? Faith, the strong value of
    faith exists in our country. As a matter of fact, I think it's the
    strength of America in many ways, and it exists in Mexico as well. The
    love of family--it's incredibly important for the future of our country.
    It's a strong value in the Mexican culture. The willingness to work
    hard. America is known for our ability to work hard. Think about the
    Mexican worker who walks 500 miles across a desert to find work. Those
    are hard-working citizens. We share that very important value of people
    willing to roll up their sleeves and work hard. No, we've got incredibly
    important relationship. It

    [[Page 1084]]

    starts with leaders being willing to have open dialog.
        We've got something in common, by the way, that you probably haven't
    thought about. President Fox's grandfather was raised in Cincinnati,
    Ohio. My grandfather was raised in Columbus, Ohio. I guess you could
    kind of say we're Ohioans, except it's kind of hard to tell by our
    accents. [Laughter]
        Not only do we share background; we share love for our respective
    countries. The first trip I took to foreign soil was to Guanajuato,
    Mexico, to visit President Fox on his ranch. By
    the way, I kind of like going to mine on occasion, too. And this is a
    man deeply committed to his country. He loves the people of Mexico. And
    I hope by now there's no question that I love the people of America as
    well. President Fox and I share the desire to do what we think is right
    for our countries. I think both of us are tired of the policy driven by
    polls and focus groups. I don't need a poll and focus group to tell me
    what to think and where to go, and neither does he. We both are doing in
    office what we said we would do.
        I told the people, by the way, that if they gave me the chance to be
    the President, the first thing I would do is remember whose taxpayers'
    money we're talking about when we're talking about budgets. The tax
    money up in Washington, that's not the Government's money; it is the
    people's money. And I'm proud to report we've got the largest tax relief
    package in a generation.
        We both are dedicated to educating--to making sure our children are
    educated. President Fox shares the same passion
    I do about good schools and good quality education. He knows what I
    know, that an educated child is one much more likely to be able to
    realize the dreams of our respective countries. That's why I'm hopeful
    Congress will quit talking about an education bill, get one out of
    conference committee, so I can sign a good reform package to make sure
    public education fulfills the promise of our schools.
        One of the things in Texas we like to say: Here's a good man. I hope
    that sums up how I feel about our speaker and guest. This guy is a good
    man, un buen hombre.
        Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome el Presidente de Republicano de
    Mexico, Vicente Fox.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:31 p.m. in Savage Hall. In his remarks,
    he referred to Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio and Mayor Carleton S. Finkbeiner of
    Toledo. The transcript released by the Office of the Press Secretary
    also included the remarks of President Vicente Fox of Mexico. The Office
    of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of
    these remarks.