[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.