[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 42, Number 43 (Monday, October 30, 2006)]
[Pages 1890-1891]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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.

[[Page 1891]]

    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 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.