The World - News from March 2, 1989

President Bush told Congress that Mexico has “cooperated fully” in the fight against drug trafficking, heading off the threat of penalties under a U.S. foreign aid law. But Secretary of State James A. Baker III, in an accompanying report, offered a gloomier picture. “The international war against narcotics is clearly not being won,” Baker wrote. “In fact, in some areas we seem to be slipping backwards.” The two offered their assessments in the federal government’s annual reports on international narcotics controls. Under foreign aid laws, the Administration must cut off aid and oppose international loans to countries that fail to cooperate with U.S. efforts to stop drug trafficking. Several senators who sought to penalize Mexico over the drug issue last year said they do not plan to press for sanctions this year, largely to give the new Mexican government “the benefit of the doubt.”