    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
    [October 25, 2006]
    [Pages 1918-1919]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Following Discussions With President Leonel Fernandez
    Reyna of the Dominican Republic
    October 25, 2006

        President Bush. Bienvenidos a mi amigo the President of the
    Dominican Republic. I'm proud to be with a strong leader who is focused
    on reform and rule of law and prosperity.
        The President informed me that the economy of the Dominican Republic
    grew by 9 percent last year. And I want to congratulate you, Mr.
    President.
        We talked about how to continue economic growth and vitality. It's
    in the interests of the United States that the Dominican Republic have a
    strong economy. We talked about the need for us to help with the
    multilateral institutions, to work with--for them to work with this
    Government to help with cash flows and cash demands so that this economy
    can continue its growth and strength.
        We talked about DR-CAFTA and how important this piece of legislation
    is to the people of the Dominican Republic and to the people of the
    United States. And I assured the President that we will implement DR-
    CAFTA as quickly as possible, as soon as possible. And to that end, I
    had my trade minister, Ambassador Susan Schwab, here to make sure that we both heard the message of the
    President, that this was a very important piece of legislation and that
    we have committed--our Government has committed to working with you, Mr.
    President, to get this done as quickly as possible.
        Y por fin, we talked about the need for us to work closely on drug
    trafficking. The United States of America must continue to work to
    diminish the demand for drugs, and we are. As well, we want to work with
    our partners in the hemisphere, particularly the Dominican Republic, to
    interdict the drugs and to help these countries be able to avoid and
    fight off the scourge of drugs, because there is a direct correlation
    between drugs and crime. And the more we can cut down on drug use and
    drug trafficking and drug supplies, the easier it will be for respective
    countries to protect their people.
        Mr. President, I appreciate very much your presence here. I thank
    you for your leadership in the hemisphere. I appreciate the advice you
    have given me on how we can work together to make sure our own
    neighborhood is secure and peaceful and hopeful. Welcome.
        President Fernandez Reyna. I thank you very much, Mr. President.
    It's a pleasure to be here. And I want to thank President Bush for the
    warm welcome that he has given me, along with my delegation, here to the
    Oval Office of the White House.
        As the President indicated, we have touched on a number of issues of
    mutual interest to our two countries. First of all, DR-CAFTA, its
    implementation, hopefully, will take place very soon. We are now in the
    final phase. This is a bill now before our own Congress in the Dominican
    Republic. We are dealing with some minor legal amendments, and our two
    teams have been working very hard to obtain a speedy implementation of
    DR-CAFTA. President Bush and we have agreed to the need to accelerate
    this process to benefit both our countries.
        Second, as President Bush indicated, we have also touched on the
    issues of disbursements by multilateral institutions. These are
    extremely important in order to help the progress of countries like the
    Dominican Republic to establish confidence, to maintain the confidence
    in our countries, and also to help us sustain ability of our economies.
        The Dominican Republic has agreements with these multilateral
    institutions, and we hope that they will be honored soon, with

    [[Page 1919]]

    regard to these disbursements. The sooner that they are complied with,
    the better it will be for us.
        And third, of course, we have touched on a number of issues such as
    the issue of drug trafficking, as President Bush mentioned, the issue of
    crime, the issue of the good relations that we have had for so many
    years between the United States and the Dominican Republic, the issue of
    good governance, the issue of respect for human rights, and a number of
    other things.
        It has been a very good meeting. Thank you so much.
        President Bush. Gracias por su tiempo.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:20 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White
    House. President Fernandez Reyna spoke in Spanish, and his remarks were
    translated by an interpreter. The Office of the Press Secretary also
    released a Spanish language transcript of these remarks.