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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2008 
Mexican President Hasn't Heard the End of 5-Day US Trip
 Alfredo Corchado - The Dallas Morning News
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| | Mexico President Felipe Calderon shakes hands with winery owner Reynaldo Robledo following a visit to the Robledo Family Winery near Sonoma, California February 13, 2008. (Reuters/Robert Galbraith) | | |
Mexican President Felipe Calderón made his first U.S. visit to learn firsthand the challenges his countrymen face. He returned to Mexico on Thursday with an earful.
Mr. Calderón's five-day, four-state visit was marked by emotional meetings with Mexicans, a memorable gaffe in New York, and criticism from some countrymen in both the U.S. and Mexico, who said he seemed more interested in drumming up investment than in learning the complex challenges they face.
Media access on the trip was also tightly controlled, and most meetings were held behind closed doors.
"I wouldn't say the trip was a complete success," conceded one Mexican official, who because of the media restrictions spoke on the condition of anonymity. "This was the beginning of a complex relationship with Mexicans abroad, and that's not always so easy."
In Cambridge, Mass., Mr. Calderón stressed the importance of transforming "Mexico from a nation that loses its best people to migration into a nation capable of generating opportunity for Mexicans on their own soil."
And he talked about the importance of balancing harsh rhetoric, whether in the United States or his own country.
"I need to change Mexico's perception that the Americans are the enemies, and it's important to change the perception that the Mexicans are the enemy," he said.
In one unusual confession in Los Angeles, Mr. Calderón, a native of the state of Michoacán, said, "Every Michoacáno has a relative, an uncle, a cousin, a brother-in-law – in my case every one of those three examples applies – who's here in the United States, somewhere, making ends meet, and who has not been able to, and may never be able to, see his family again."
Back home, criticism rang.
The influential, left-leaning Mexico City daily La Jornada said Mr. Calderón's trip was "marked by gaffes and deficiencies, from the unexplained exclusion of the national and international press to the shameful incident" in which a briefing at a Starbucks, arranged by Mr. Calderón's press office, ended abruptly when employees asked the entourage to leave because they were disrupting service to customers.
And Mr. Calderón returned home without a handshake from President Bush, unusual for a foreign leader, political analysts and Mexico experts said.
"First, it is amazing to me that it took so long for Calderón to come here," said Irasema Coronado, an expert on Mexican politics and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso. "And it's unusual for a foreign leader to visit a country and not meet with the president. Even when [President Nicolas] Sarkozy of France vacationed here in the United States, he had lunch with the Bushes at Camp David."
But other officials and analysts view Mr. Calderón's first trip to the U.S. as being in line with his overall strategy and style of being low key in tone and letting actions, not rhetoric, speak for him. Former President Vicente Fox's gregarious style won him both admirers and enemies, but Mr. Calderón is more of a "political animal" who prefers backdoor negotiations to the limelight, said UTEP's Tony Payan, a political science professor and Mexico expert.
"Calderón is much savvier than Mr. Fox," Mr. Payan added.
Mr. Calderón's most important conversations weren't necessarily with U.S. investors, or even his countrymen, but with mayors, state legislators and governors.
"A lot of the hostility is so localized that by visiting these officials and talking to them he may make headways to ease the pressure on migrants who have been under constant siege," Mr. Payan said.
acorchado(at)dallasnews.com |
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