[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 19 (Monday, May 12, 1997)]
[Pages 666-671]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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

[[Page 667]]

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 throw up walls of protection to ward off the challenge of change. 
But more and more, people here and 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.
    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

[[Page 668]]

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.
    The 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.''
    Let us see something equal to it and greater. Let us renew this 
crusade. And let us remember, as my wife has said, the 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 shinning 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 
be

[[Page 669]]

longs, 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 American, 
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, Javier 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, 
bring 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 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 
drugtrafficking. The cost 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 enforce

[[Page 670]]

ment 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 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 offers 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, it 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 a report of our Binational Commission. From wiping out 
tuberculosis in our border States to protecting endangered species in 
the Pacific, to increasing education 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 promise of a new 
century lies before us. Let us embrace it together.
    Thank you.

[[Page 671]]

Note: The President spoke at 11:21 a.m. at the National Auditorium, and 
his remarks were broadcast live on Mexican television. A tape was not 
available for verification of the content of this address.