Global Issues
NORTH AMERICA:: Scant Results for Mexico at Summit
At the two-day summit between the heads of state of Canada, Mexico and the United States, Mexican President Felipe Calderón failed to obtain a positive response with respect to the situation of millions of undocumented Mexican immigrants in the United States, a solution to the dispute over access to U.S. highways by Mexican trucks, or the removal of the visa requirement for Mexicans, put in place by Canada last month.
But he did receive pledges of support from U.S. President Barack Obama in the fight against drug trafficking and in coordinating efforts to track the spread of the H1N1 flu virus and prepare for new outbreaks. 'I have great confidence in President Calderón's administration, applying the law enforcement techniques that are necessary to curb the power of the (drug) cartels, but doing so in a way that's consistent with human rights,' Obama said in the two-hour press conference that wrapped up Monday's summit with Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. 'We discussed this in our bilateral meeting and I am confident that, as the national police are trained and the coordination between the military and local police officials is improved, there is going to be increased transparency and accountability, and that human rights will be observed,' he added. The strategy followed by Calderón since he took office in December 2006 has been to deploy 45,000 soldiers and thousands of police to combat the drug cartels. But his policy has drawn harsh criticism for the human rights violations allegedly committed during the anti-drug operations.
As a result, the U.S. Senate has blocked 15 percent equivalent to 100 million dollars of the funds of the Mérida Initiative, a 1.4-billion-dollar, three-year regional aid package to help address the increasing violence and corruption of drug cartels in Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic, launched in 2008.
The plan was approved by the administration of George W. Bush (2001-2009).
The U.S. Congress mandated that 15 percent of the funds to be provided to Mexico should be withheld until the secretary of state reports that the Mexican government has met several specific human rights conditions, including a requirement that military abuses be investigated and prosecuted by civilian rather than military authorities.
In the official statement released by the summit, held in the western Mexican city of Guadalajara, Harper announced that his government would increase training of Mexican police as part of a new 15-million dollar security programme for the Americas.
'There was no issue that directly involved Mexico. The game was on our home turf, but we were merely guests. Besides, we are immersed in the security question,' Professor Ignacio Martínez, coordinator of the International Relations Centre at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told IPS.
The agenda of the two-day summit focused on economic and security issues, as well as immigration, climate change, the H1N1 flu epidemic, the crisis in Honduras, and Canada's new visa requirement for Mexican travellers.
With respect to migration, Obama ruled out short-term reform that would benefit between 10 and 12 million undocumented Latin American immigrants, seven million of whom are from Mexico.
The U.S. Congress is primarily concerned about energy, health and financial reforms at this time. Obama said 'I would anticipate that before the year is out we will have draft legislation (on immigration reform) along with sponsors potentially in the House and Senate, who are ready to move this forward.'
He said that as things stand, the system is 'not fair, and it's not right, and we're going to change it.'
Mexican analyst Ana Salazar said 'we could say that it was a boring summit, but successful in terms of building, in the long term, a more prosperous North America.' On the health front, Calderón said at the news briefing that 'we know that H1N1 will return in winter. We three countries are preparing to confront this virus responsibly and minimise its impact on our people.' The epidemic, which broke out in Mexico and the United States in April, has so far claimed 1,154 deaths worldwide, including 146 in Mexico, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures.
Nor did Obama offer guarantees about when the ban on cross-border trucking by Mexican vehicles would be lifted. In March, the U.S. Congress cancelled a pilot programme that had allowed some trucks to cross the border. In response, Mexico slapped 2.4 billion dollars in tariffs on a list of U.S. goods.
Free cross-border access was to be put in place in 1995, under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has joined Canada, Mexico and the United States since 1994.
The leaders agreed to strengthen labour standards and environmental protection, in accordance with NAFTA side agreements, thus ruling out a review of the treaty, as promised by Obama in his 2008 election campaign and rejected by the Mexican government.
In an alternative 'trinational' forum held parallel to the summit, Aug. 8-10, NGOs and social movements from the three countries met under the slogan 'Fifteen years of economic failure and more poverty are enough: It is time to renegotiate NAFTA with the participation of society'.
Calderón also failed in his attempt to get Canada to overturn the decision to require visas for visitors from Mexico, adopted on Jul. 14 under the argument that the number of requests for political asylum from nationals from this country has become unmanageable. (The same policy was put in place for people from the Czech Republic).
According to analysts, the annual summit highlighted Mexico's incapacity to influence the foreign policy decisions of its northern neighbours.
'It would appear that Mexico lacks a clear position as to what its medium to long-term relationship with the United States should look like,' Salazar told IPS. 'There is nothing that weakens one's position at the bargaining table more than sitting down without a clear negotiating strategy.
'We don't know what Calderón's foreign policy priorities are' for the final years of his term, which ends in 2012, she said.
The first North American summit was held in March 2005, when Bush hosted President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) and Prime Minister Paul Martin (2003-2006) at his ranch in Waco, Texas. Next year's summit will be held in Canada.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service