For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 22, 2002
Joint U.S.-Mexico Statement
Joint Statement by the Presidents of the United States and Mexico
Monterrey, Mexico
March 22nd, 2002
Our meeting today was a valuable opportunity to celebrate
the strength and vitality of the U.S.-Mexican bilateral
partnership over the past year, and discuss our priorities for the year
ahead.
Our two nations have developed a historic level of
trust and mutual respect, strengthened by common
values and purposes, that has facilitated an unprecedented degree of
bilateral cooperation over the past year. It is
a high national priority of both nations
to continue building on that cooperation over the coming
years and harnessing it for the achievement of the important
goals of economic and social development, security, and rule of law
that are essential to both countries' wellbeing.
In this context, we agreed
that the international campaign to eradicate
terrorism requires us to address pressing new
priorities and shared goals central to defending
our societies and ways of life. At the same time, we
recognized that the events of
September 11 underscore more than ever the importance of the
U.S.-Mexican relationship, as partners and neighbors, in the attainment
of those goals and in realizing the vision we have set forth for our
countries' future. Hence, we reviewed what we are doing together to
create a "smart border" for the 21st century. We will build
a border that protects our societies against
those who would do us harm, and that truly serves the human
and economic needs of our dynamic relationship. We share
a vision of a modern border that speeds the
legitimate flow of people and commerce, and filters out all that
threatens our safety and prosperity.
The "smart border" declaration and
action plan we have just adopted sets out a series of
specific steps we will take to move concretely toward that
vision. The twenty-point action plan comprises measures
that will enhance
the secure flow of goods and people,
and build a modern and efficient
infrastructure that keeps pace with
commerce. We intend to monitor this
process closely to ensure the fastest possible
implementation of these and other steps on which we may agree. Both
governments will work expeditiously
to prioritize infrastructure investment needs
and cooperate to identify funding sources.
Slightly more than one year ago, in
Guanajuato, we talked about migration
as one of the major ties
that join our societies. We launched then the
frankest and most productive dialogue our
countries have ever had on this
important and challenging subject.
Those talks have continued over the past year, and have yielded a
clearer assessment of the scope and nature of this
issue. This bond between our nations can render countless
benefits to
our respective economies and families. Over the past
year, important progress has been made to enhance migrant safety and
particularly in saving lives by discouraging and reducing illegal
crossings in dangerous terrain.
On September 7, 2001, during President Fox's historic
State Visit to
Washington, we issued a joint statement instructing
our cabinet-level
working group to provide us with
specific proposals to forge a new and realistic framework
that will ensure a safe, legal, orderly, and dignified migration flow
between our countries. We have today agreed that our Cabinet
level migration group should continue the work we
charged it with in Guanajuato and Washington.
When we first met as
Presidents, we described our shared vision to help
unfetter the economic potential of
every citizen, so each may contribute fully to narrowing the economic
gaps between and within our societies. To
help implement that vision, we launched the "Partnership
for Prosperity."
The Partnership seeks to leverage private
resources to create jobs and promote prosperity in less
developed areas of Mexico. Today, we welcomed
the Partnership's action plan of
concrete and innovative initiatives on
housing, agriculture,
infrastructure, remittances, communications,
development financing and information technologies. Some
examples include:
Lowering the cost to Mexicans and
Mexican-Americans in the United States of sending money home so that
their families get to keep more of their hard-earned wages;
Increasing the accessibility of capital to
Mexican entrepreneurs so that they can grow their businesses and create
more and better jobs.
Increasing investment
in housing, and the creation of a secondary mortgage market, so more
Mexicans can become homeowners.
Our aim is to foster economic development so that no
Mexican feels
compelled to leave his or her
home for a lack of a job or opportunity.
While achieving the Partnership's
goals will require time and persistent
effort, the initial steps detailed in this
report will build a strong foundation for long-term
success. We will closely follow implementation of
these promising steps. We are
confident that the high level officials we have tasked with
turning our vision into reality will produce results that will make us
both proud and benefit both our countries.
We commend the ongoing success of the
Training, Internship, Education and
Scholarship program (TIES), designed to support the Partnership for
Prosperity by enhancing conditions for
sustained development in Mexico.
Over the next five years this $50 million initiative
is expected to
implement 35 partnerships between Mexican and U.S. higher education
institutions and to provide hundreds of
scholarships for undergraduate exchanges and graduate studies in the
United States.
When we met in Washington in
September we talked about the importance of
addressing urgent environmental priorities on the
border. After a series
of discussions with border states, the local communities, and
other
stakeholders, our binational working group has finalized a
series of
specific recommendations to strengthen the performance of the North
American Development Bank (NADBank), and its sister
institution the Border Environmental Cooperation Commission (BECC).
As these institutions
continue to
work on urgent environmental
infrastructure priorities in the border areas,
both governments will work
with their legislatures to make the recommendations a reality. The
recommendations include measures to make financing more
affordable, expand
the geographic scope on the Mexican
side of the border in which projects
can be financed, replacing the two institutions' separate boards
of
directors with a single board to oversee their
work, and facilitate efforts to work with and co-finance
environmental projects with the private sector.
Cooperation against organized crime remains a
cornerstone of the bilateral agenda.
We acknowledged major successes achieved by
Mexico in the fight against narco-trafficking.
We agreed on the importance
of redoubling judicial cooperation aimed at bolstering the
rule of law in both countries and strengthening our ability to ensure
the safety of our citizens.
We also reviewed regional political issues of
interest to both countries,
including sharing assessments of the
situations in Argentina, Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela.
We have consulted frequently, as friends and
neighbors, over the past six months as we have
sought to advance a vision of growing partnership aimed
at increasing prosperity, greater economic convergence
between our two
economies, raising living standards, and
ensuring the security of both
societies. Our commitment to this fundamental agenda, and to the
importance of our partnership, is
stronger than ever. We will continue our close
and productive dialogue in the months and years ahead as we take full
advantage of the great opportunities before our two nations.
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