Former Mexican president sees U.S.-Mexico relations as cold, distant

By Sandra Dibble

Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 9:17 p.m.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox during an interview Thursday at USD's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice. / Photo by Peggy Peattie, U-T

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox spent Thursday on the University of San Diego campus, where he delivered a speech titled, “Advancing U.S.-Mexican Relations in the 21st Century.” He spoke about immigration, security, drug trafficking, economic cooperation and the development of his Centro Fox research center in his home state of Guanajuato, which also houses his presidential library — Mexico’s first.
The following are excerpts from his talk at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, remarks made at a news conference and a separate interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Q: How do you see the U.S.-Mexico relationship?
A: It’s cold, it’s distant, it’s beginning to be conflictive. It never has happened before that a U.S. ambassador to Mexico resigned, or he was resigned. ... We have a big black cloud on the future of this relationship. We’re not having a vision of the future and where we should go.
Q: You are advocating NAFTA-plus, an expansion of the North American Free Trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that was ratified in 1994. What do you see as the benefits?
A: We have to work together in a very positive, harmonious way for Canada, the United States and Mexico to regain the productivity that we have lost. The only way to compete is to put together our resources, by forming NAFTA-oriented corporations that will nourish our capacity to compete with Asian corporations.
Q: What do you think of U.S. states, including Arizona and Alabama, taking a stronger role in pushing immigration-related legislation?
A: They don’t see Congress taking action. They make their own decisions, their own wrong, xenophobic decisions.
Q: You and many other Mexicans have said Mexico is facing an unfair burden as it fights drug-trafficking groups supplying the U.S. market. Why?
A: Why are we trying to stop the drugs from crossing to the United States? Wouldn’t it be easier for the U.S. government, for President (Barack) Obama to give instructions to U.S. enforcement agencies and tell them stop drugs from moving freely within the United States? ... The United States is sending a few dollars to Mexico for the Merida agreement and some instructions, “Please Mexicans hold the drugs down there, we don’t want it here in the United States.” How many lives are we going to be sacrificing?
Q: You have been calling for drug legalization for the past two years. Why not during your presidency?
A: If I would have seen 40,000 people die during my term, believe me, I would have changed things. ... I see the process in the United States — how it’s advancing quickly toward legalization. I see cases abroad, like Portugal, and see a solution there.
Q: Last month, major Mexican news organizations agreed to guidelines for more restrained coverage of the drug-related violence in Mexico. Why are you against this pact?
A: Freedom does not have a degree. Freedom has to be all the way, even if in the name of freedom you make mistakes, even if in the name of freedom you affect others. This was done wrongly by the media in Mexico. I would like to hear their explanation of why they were forced to, either by the group or some leaders, to act like that. By taking out crime coverage from the papers, it’s not going to solve the problem in Mexico, that’s for sure.