Interview With Joaquin Lopez-Doriga of Televisa Channel 2

SECRETARY POWELL: No, I'm on no farewell tour. I'm the Secretary of State, and will remain Secretary of State for as long as President Bush and I decide that's the thing for us to do. So I'm just going ahead with my job, and I ignore all of the rumors and speculation as to what might happen. The President has not made any decisions with respect to his Cabinet yet, and I'm sure he will make decisions in the days ahead.

So I'm here, really, for the 21st Binational Commission meeting, which has been a very, very successful meeting, and it demonstrates the strength of the relationship between the United States and Mexico. And I think was timely that I was able to come right after the President's election to recommit America and the Bush Administration to our mutual efforts to move forward on migration, border security, and so many other issues that are of importance to Mexicans and Americans.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: Mr. Powell, let's analyze for a moment the current state of affairs between the United States and Mexico. Would you characterize the progress of the last four years as sufficient or insufficient?

SECRETARY POWELL: I would say that it has been good, but there is more that we can do. We wanted to do more on migration, but when 9/11 happened, and in the aftermath of 9/11, as we took action to secure our country, we had to slow down on some of our migration initiatives.

But now that 9/11 is three years behind us, and now that President Bush has been elected to a second term, we hope to do more with migration, with the temporary workers programs that the President said he wishes to put before our Congress.

I think we have done a great deal with respect to transit across the border, with respect to making sure that we are securing our border in a better way, but also making sure that we are protecting Mexicans who come across that border. And so I think we've seen a great deal of progress in many areas, but we can never be satisfied with our progress. We always want to see more progress.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: I just can't see Mexico. Where does Mexico fit in the United States' stated priorities? How can we understand this fading relationship?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, America* is our second biggest trading partner. We have seen how NAFTA has drawn us so much closer together. Both of our economies have thrived as a result of NAFTA. Mexico is becoming a more important player, not only within the region, within the western hemisphere, but on the world stage.

We have had some disagreements with Mexico over the last couple of years, specifically with respect to Iraq, but we are working with Mexico in so many other areas. President Bush looks forward to seeing President Fox at the APEC meeting in Santiago, Chile.

So Mexico always will occupy an important place in American foreign policy considerations because of its proximity, because of the friendship that our two nations have enjoyed for so long, because of our economic interconnection, because of all of the Mexicans who live and work in the United States and all of the Americans who live and work in Mexico. Mexico will always be high on our agenda.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: So no more hard feelings about Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, that was over a year ago--

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: That’s finished.

SECRETARY POWELL: --Now that's finished. That's over. Now what we all have to do is work together to help the Iraqi people to a better future so that Iraq can have the kind of democracy that Mexico enjoys, the kinds of democracy that the United States enjoys.

We had a disagreement as to what to do with Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is gone. He's in a jail. There are still remnants of his regime that are fighting us. They have to be defeated so that the people of Iraq should be given, can have the opportunity to vote for their own leaders. It's what the people of Mexico have and it's what the people of Afghanistan now have. Why shouldn't the people in Iraq have what we all have, what the United States has?

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: In another interview with Egyptian TV, you talk about your main accomplishment as Secretary of State, but failed to mention Mexico.

SECRETARY POWELL: You give me enough time and I will mention many, many things. But on this occasion I will say that I think we have accomplished a lot with Mexico, and we just touched on some of the things. If you look at what we did today at the Binational Working Group, and if you look at all of the programs that have advanced, what Secretary Ridge and Secretary Creel have done on border security and transit; what Secretary Mineta, our Secretary of Transportation, has done with his Mexican colleague on expediting commerce and the travel of people going back and forth; we've just started the Peace Corps program here in Mexico. And as the American economy has picked up in the last year, that has benefited the Mexican economy. We are working toward a solution on the issue of water. On so many areas we have moved forward.

And so I will take this opportunity to tell you what I would consider the improved relationship that exists between the United States and Mexico as a foreign policy achievement of President Bush's first term.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: And what about the migration agreement?

SECRETARY POWELL: The migration agreement, we had big ambitions at the beginning of 2001 when President Bush and President Fox came in. There were many issues we wanted to talk about. But 9/11 came along, and we had a reaction to 9/11 in our Congress as well, and among the American people, saying, we have these individuals who came into our country and dealt us this serious blow in New York at the World Trade Center and in Washington at the Pentagon. And we need to get better control of our borders, so we can't loosen things up right now. We have to tighten things up right now.

Although we know no Mexican has ever performed this kind of terrorist act against America, at the same time, we had to put in place uniform policies that slowed everything down and made it difficult to get migration legislation through our Congress. But as I say, we are now in a new environment. President Bush is in his second term, his last term, and I think he plans to work more aggressively with the Congress, but to start in a reasonable way, a modest way -- start with the temporary workers' program, see if we can get that through, and then see where we go from there.

What we must not do is raise expectations too high so that if we are unable to reach those expectations there is great disappointment. We should have modest objectives that move us in the direction we wish to go. Remember, we are also working on the Social Security Totalization Agreement. There are other things we have done to have border control passes so that Mexicans using them can go for a longer period of time into the United States, and we're doing a number of things that we think show to our Mexican friends that we respect them, we want them to come to the United States, we want to regularize their travel back and forth. When they come work, we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to return home.

And so it is in our -- it is now interest to make sure we work on all of these migration problems with our Mexican friends, but we have to take them one step at a time and have modest goals so that they can be achieved, and not lofty ambitions that we are unable to achieve in the near future.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: Don't you think it was a big mistake when someone started to talk about the whole enchilada?

SECRETARY POWELL: It was not a line that I used and it kind of created expectations that were not -- it was not possible to meet. So we are not using that expression anymore. We are taking little bites of the enchilada, and not the whole enchilada at once.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: And your government really seems to be making a comeback in different parts of the world -- Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela. A few years ago, President Fox mentioned that Mexico needed to have a leftist government, but really, is the United States preparing to have a leftist administration in Mexico?

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States will work with any administration in any of the countries of the world, and especially in our own hemisphere, that is freely elected and is part of a democratic process. So even though some of the new governments that have come into power are a little more to the left than, say, the politics of my government, that's the choice of their people.

The important thing is that if it is a democratic system, those new governments that have come in that might be to the lefts of center, they will face the same problems that the government that left had. They have to provide for their people. If they provide for their people, if they take care of their economy, if the economy grows, if jobs are created, if the people have health care, if the children are educated, if the people have housing, then the people of that country will continue to support such governments. But if those governments are not successful, then the people will vote them out of office next time around.

So I am most interested in seeing that all of the nations in our hemisphere are governed by democratically-elected governments that reflect the will of the people, and the United States' position is we will work with any government that reflects the open, free will of its people.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: One more question, Mr. Powell. What is your perception of President Fox administration from Washington? Has he fulfilled the expectations set four years ago?

SECRETARY POWELL: We believe that President Fox has fulfilled those expectations. He is a good friend of the United States. He and President Bush have a very strong personal relationship. They stay in very close touch with one another. We had a big disagreement. There's no way to avoid this. We had a big disagreement over Iraq. But that disagreement is now behind us and we are doing everything to make sure that the Mexican people and the American people see two leaders, two governments, that are working as hard as they can to improve relations between our two governments and peoples for the sole purpose of improving life for the people of Mexico and the people of the United States, to give them the opportunity to go as far as their dreams will take them because we have created an economic situation and a political situation founded on democracy that will allow people to go as high as their willingness to work, their ambitions, and their dreams will take them.

MR. LOPEZ-DORIGA: Thank you, Mr. Powell.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much, Joaquin.

2004/1213