Bush and Mexico’s Salinas Pledge Trust : Leaders Sign Agreements on Trade, Environment and Tourism

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and President Bush on Tuesday pledged mutual trust and understanding on cross-boundary issues, agreeing to conduct trade negotiations and to clean up pollution in Mexico City and Tijuana.

To mark Salinas’ visit to Washington, the two governments signed seven agreements on trade, the environment, investment and tourism.

The agreements, Bush said in praising the “closeness” of U.S.-Mexico ties, “are concrete examples of how our administrations have worked closely together during the last 10 months. They show what can and must be done to make relations between our two great nations even closer than they are today.”

Salinas also applauded the close relationship but said his primary goal in facilitating U.S. investment in Mexico was to “open up additional sources of employment in Mexico for Mexicans.”

The agreements were generally non-specific, but two environmental pacts commit the nations to construct an international sewage treatment plant in California just across the border from Tijuana. They also will conduct joint scientific and technical projects to fight air pollution in Mexico City.

The sewage problem has become a matter of increasing U.S.-Mexican tension because Tijuana waste pollutes the waters and beaches of San Diego. The agreement provides that the new plant will provide secondary treatment and disposal of waste not now treated in Tijuana.

Salinas, in remarks at the signing ceremony acknowledged that Mexico City is “the most polluted city in the world. . . . We want better air for the Mexicans, for their children and for children of their children in Mexico.”

The two countries agreed to work on the problem of smog in the Mexican capital, through “technology transfers, scientific and technical advice, environmental monitoring and environmental impact assessments by Mexican authorities, joint meetings and reviews, exchange of relevant personnel and exchanges of environmental information and data, coordination on national programs” and funding cooperation.

The agreement on trade, signed at the White House by Secretary of State James A. Baker III and his Mexican counterpart, Fernando Solana, was an agreement to negotiate toward “facilitating and enhancing” U.S.-Mexico trade relations.

In November, the two countries are to decide what trade issues are negotiable.

Bush during his presidential campaign said he would seek a free trade agreement with Mexico, possibly akin to the one negotiated with Canada under former President Ronald Reagan. However, no such agreement has materialized.

A separate agreement commited the countries to work on easing investment opportunity for U.S. firms in Mexico.