Mexico Trip Puts Bush on Familiar Turf

When George W. Bush steps on foreign soil today for the first time as president, he will find himself in familiar surroundings.

His grasp of foreign policy may be tentative, but by going to Mexico first, Bush has all but ensured that he will be on firm footing during his seven-hour debut on the world stage.

Since he first went to Mexico with his wife, Laura, shortly after their 1977 marriage, Bush has visited the country about a dozen times. And, having served for six years as the governor of a large border state, he is no stranger to the panoply of controversies between the United States and Mexico.

So when Bush and Vicente Fox meet this morning at the Mexican president’s ranch in San Cristobal in central Mexico, it will be their fourth meeting in less than five years, albeit their first as heads of state.

Many U.S. presidents make Canada and Mexico among their first foreign trips to underscore their concern for neighbors. “The best foreign policy starts at home,” Bush said Thursday. “We’ve got to have good relations in our hemisphere.”

Yet Bush’s fluency in U.S.-Mexico issues--and familiarity with a man he hopes will become a hemispheric “partner”--doesn’t guarantee a successful relationship between the two nations, a senior Bush administration official acknowledged Thursday.

“This is an effort for the two presidents to establish a really good relationship--so that when there are difficult issues on the agenda, they feel that they can talk about them,” the official said. “The president regards this trip as a chance to set a tone and substance for a dialogue with Mexico.”

Bush also acknowledged that “the door is open to a closer partnership with the United States. But nothing about this new relationship is inevitable. Only through hard work will we get it right.”

Among the issues that Bush and Fox are likely to discuss are trade, immigration, energy, pollution and drug trafficking.

Bush expects to do at least as much listening as talking while in Mexico, according to top White House aides.

“The two presidents believe that there isn’t any issue that they can’t discuss,” said one senior administration official. “He will listen to what Vicente Fox thinks about these issues, because . . . he understands that we don’t have all the answers on how Mexico is going to make progress. He really needs to take some cues from President Fox.”

The 54-year-old Bush said that the two men met as governors, “and I look forward to renewing and deepening our friendship. But I look forward even more to forging a deeper partnership between our two great nations--a partnership characterized by cooperation and creativity and mutual respect.”

Fox, 58, a former governor of Guanajuato state, is equally realistic--and hopeful.

“Well, after three encounters, we cannot talk about a friendship. However, what I can tell you is that there is chemistry,” the Mexican president told reporters Sunday. “We have quickly gotten along with each other.”

Like Bush, Fox is a man known for his skills at applying the personal touch.

The first order of business at the Fox ranch this morning will be Bush’s visit with the Mexican president’s mother.

“It is an extremely touching gesture by President Fox to want the president to meet his mother,” said a top Bush advisor. “It says something about the personal level of the relationship, and another place that they can connect.”

Fox further laid out his intentions for Bush during a Jan. 31 interview on a Mexican news program.

“Well, one acts modestly, unassumingly,” he said. “We will probably be dressed casually. We will probably sit down to talk for a long while, to walk around, here and there. I hope to go horseback riding a bit, if he accepts. To speak a bit while on horseback. Walking. It is really inspiring. Many good things could stem.”

Political analysts in Mexico appear to have similar expectations.

The Bush-Fox meeting “is the beginning of what we all hope will be a very personal and collaborative relationship,” said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a political scientist at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. That Bush is making his first foreign trip to see Fox “is overwhelmingly important for Mexico,” he added.

But Fernandez de Castro also warned that personal ties alone cannot define the two countries’ relationship, saying, “What matters is the processes they establish.

“What happens when there is a crisis? Who in the U.S. will manage the relationship? [Secretary of State] Colin Powell? [National Security Advisor] Condoleezza Rice? There has never been good coordination in U.S. policy toward Mexico. It has always been fragmented. So who is there to speak on Mexico? To me, this is the most important challenge.”

A senior Bush administration official Thursday also urged a long view.

“I want to be very clear that I don’t think the benefits of this meeting can be measured after one single meeting, because this is a process of developing a relationship that we hope to be calling on over and over.”

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Times staff writers James F. Smith in Mexico City and Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.

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