President of Mexico Visits State Today

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, widely credited in the United States with having opened up the long-sheltered Mexican economy, is scheduled to begin an intensive, three-day trip to California in San Diego today.

The Mexican president is slated to make later appearances in San Francisco, Los Angeles and at Stanford University in Palo Alto.

The visit, the president’s second to California since assuming the presidency in 1988, underscores the expanding commercial and cultural ties between Mexico and California, the state with the largest number of people of Mexican ancestry in the United States.

“He’s reaching out into the state in a way that no other president of Mexico has ever done,” said Francisco R. Herrera, Gov. Pete Wilson’s assistant for international affairs.

The governor is expected to meet with Salinas twice--in San Diego today and Los Angeles on Monday.

The president’s visit comes at a time when Mexican, U.S. and Canadian negotiators are working out the terms of a proposed North American Free Trade Agreement, the repercussions of which will likely be a principal theme of the Salinas speeches. Trade between California and Mexico topped $8 billion in 1989, the last year for which figures were available.

In the United States, President Bush and other U.S. officials have spoken in laudatory terms of Salinas’ sweeping economic and political reforms in Mexico.

But, south of the border, the moves have generated criticism, particularly among opposition groups on the left who fear that relaxed trade barriers have mostly benefited U.S. corporate executives eager to make use of the vast pool of cheap labor in Mexico.

There is also great fear that more U.S. firms will move south in search of laxer environmental standards.

In the San Diego area, the highlight of Salinas’ visit will be a $250-a-plate luncheon in his honor Saturday at the Hotel del Coronado, attended by business and community leaders from the San Diego-Tijuana area. The president is expected to speak about the role of the border region in future economic development.

The president and his entourage are expected to spend Saturday night in San Diego before leaving early Sunday for Northern California, where Salinas has a full schedule, including a major address at Stanford University. At Stanford, Salinas is expected to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulrooney.

Salinas is scheduled to arrive Monday afternoon in Los Angeles, where he is to meet with Mexican-American political and community leaders before attending a dinner celebrating the opening of a much-heralded exhibition of Mexican art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Salinas is scheduled to return to Mexico City on Monday evening.