Obama in Mexico: 'Safety and security'

by Tracy Wilkinson and Peter Nicholas

MEXICO CITY -- President Obama arrived today in embattled Mexico, where he faces a test of his ability to bring fundamental change to one of Washington's most important relationships.

Obama stepped off of Air Force One and then went to confer with Mexico President Felipe Calderon, with drugs, guns and immigration on the agenda.

Obama will be in Mexico less than 24 hours before continuing Friday to Trinidad and Tobago for the fifth Summit of the Americas, a three-day meeting of the hemisphere's 34 elected heads of state and government. U.S.-Latin American relations are at their lowest point in years.

Like much of the rest of Latin America, the Mexico that receives a visit from Obama today yearns for the kind of new partnership that the president espouses.

"Times have changed," Obama said in an interview with CNN en Espanol, aired today. "There's no senior partner or junior partner."

The United States plans to help Calderon, who Obama said has done "an outstanding and heroic job" in taking on the country's violent drug cartels. "We are going to be dealing not only with drug interdiction coming north, but also working on helping to curb the flow of cash and guns going south.''

Beyond spoken commitments, Mexico is looking for concrete assistance in several areas.

Powerful drug-trafficking organizations have unleashed a wave of violence that has claimed more than 10,000 lives in just over two years and could threaten Calderon's ability to govern. Calderon has repeatedly called on Washington to do more to stop the flow of weapons and drug money from the U.S. and to curb the demand for the tons of cocaine and marijuana that Mexican traffickers send north.

Obama is expected to use the same moves that he did during his successful European visit earlier this month. He vowed to listen and acknowledged past American shortcomings as he called for a focus on the future.

"Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors," Obama wrote in an op-ed published today in newspapers in Florida and across Latin America. "We have been too easily distracted by other priorities, and have failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas."

Obama continued: "My administration is committed to the promise of a new day. We will renew and sustain a broader partnership between the United States and the hemisphere on behalf of our common prosperity and our common security."

In the CNN interview, Obama stressed his cooperative approach.

"The United States, I think, has a leadership role to play in dealing with many of the big problems that we face," he said. "But we also recognize that other countries have important contributions and insights. We want to listen and learn, as well as talk. And that approach, I think, of mutual respect and finding common interests is one that ultimately will serve everybody."

Despite Mexico's urgent needs, the Obama stopover is largely symbolic.

The trip "is designed to send a very clear signal to our friends in Mexico City that we have a series of shared challenges as it relates to the economy, as it relates to security, insecurity, the threat of violence, and the impact of drug trafficking on both our countries," said Denis McDonough, director of strategic communications at the National Security Council.

Thus far, the Obama administration has promised to put more law enforcement agents along the border, step up southbound inspections, accelerate release of portions of the $1.4 billion in aid allotted under the so-called Merida Initiative and reexamine domestic drug-use policies.

Calderon's offensive against the drug gangs has consisted primarily of deploying 45,000 army troops to the most violent areas of his nation, including traditional drug-producing centers such as the state of Sinaloa, and border cities such as Tijuana.

Separately, and less successfully, he is attempting to reform major institutions by purging and retraining corrupt police forces, changing the way trials are conducted and pushing legislation to make it possible to investigate money laundering. It is in these latter "institution-building" measures that U.S. aid is especially critical, Mexican officials say.

While Obama is expected to focus on the drug war, Mexicans have other issues they want to raise.

On immigration, Mexico favors an expanded temporary-workers program that would allow Mexicans to travel back and forth over the border legally and expeditiously. About half of the 12 million illegal immigrants said to be living in the U.S. are Mexican, and regularizing their status is a priority for Calderon's government.

Obama has pledged to tackle comprehensive immigration reform, but it's a politically sensitive topic in the U.S., where there is no consensus. The issue is particularly sensitive during times of economic downturn.

The economies of the two countries are closely interconnected, and the crisis in the U.S. is felt acutely here. Remittances and exports of manufactured goods and oil -- Mexico's principal income providers -- are all declining.

Another point of contention is a dispute over Mexican long-haul trucks, which under the North American Free Trade Agreement are supposed to be allowed to transport cargo in the U.S. The Obama administration suspended the program; Mexico retaliated by slapping tariffs on $2 billion worth of fruit, electronics and other U.S. exports destined for Mexico.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the issues that Obama will raise in Mexico are the same ones that he will discuss at the summit.

"First and foremost is the economy, the global economic crisis, and what should be done to help it," he said. "In both Mexico and at the summit, energy and climate change will be important conversations that are had. And undoubtedly in both we'll talk about safety and security, first and foremost here in Mexico with the initiative that Congress and the administration -- both administrations, the previous administration and our administration, have undertaken."

One country that won't be at the summit is Cuba. While holding on to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba as leverage for promoting greater political freedom in the neighboring island nation, Obama is easing travel restrictions and financial rules for Cuban-Americans who want to visit their relatives, help them financially or communicate via cellphone.

To go further, he said he is looking for "some signal" of changes in Cuba's handling of political prisoners, travel by Cubans, religious liberties and free-speech rights.

"And if there is some sense of movement on those fronts in Cuba, then I think we can see a further thawing of relations and further changes," he said.

On Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of the U.S. and an ally of Cuba who has called Obama's predecessor "the devil," Obama said: "Look, he's the leader of his country and he'll be one of many people that I will have an opportunity to meet.''

On the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: "Some of the practices of enhanced interrogation techniques, I think, ran counter to American values and American traditions....... I'm a strong believer that it is important to look forward and not backward and to remind ourselves that we do have very real security threats out there."

On the image of the U.S. in the region: It's had its "ups and downs,'' he said, but, "there's a reason why there are consistently so many immigrants to our country from Latin America.'' The U.S., he says, still is the land of "hope.''

Mark Silva and Michael Muskal contributed to this report.