[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 36 (Monday, September 10, 2001)]
[Pages 1274-1276]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 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

[[Page 1275]]

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 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

[[Page 1276]]

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 Mayor Carleton S. Finkbeiner of Toledo; Gov. Bob Taft of 
Ohio; and President Vicente Fox of Mexico. The transcript released by 
the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks of President 
Fox.