Boots Are a Fitting Symbol for Summit

At the cowboy summit, the symbols and souvenirs of the ties that bind the United States and Mexico tended toward the cowhide.

Among the mementos that President Bush received Friday during his visit with Mexican President Vicente Fox was a pair of cowboy boots, one foot emblazoned with the Mexican seal and the other with the two nations’ flags side by side. If that pair seemed rather ostentatious, say, for a walk around his Texas ranch, Bush also received a flag-free pair of handcrafted dress boots, valued at more than $400.

Fashion tastes aside, the cowboy boots that both presidents like to wear have come to symbolize their shared affinity for ranch life--and the hopes of many Mexicans that Bush and Fox will together build a more relaxed, balanced relationship between these entwined neighbors.

“Prospering together,” declared the bunting hung from flagpoles along the spruced-up two-lane route to Fox’s ranch here in San Cristobal in Guanajuato state.

Fox’s unlikely campaign for the presidency relied heavily on symbols such as his cowboy boots and his brash “Fox” belt buckle to distinguish him from generations of bland, bureaucratic rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Fox’s victory in July ended seven decades of PRI presidencies.

Fox has stressed that he wants a more evenhanded relationship with the U.S., built on Mexico’s newly legitimate democratic credentials. Bush, in turn, has said he will emphasize relations with Latin America in his foreign policy.

Some kitschy souvenirs reflecting the optimism for better relations were on sale at stands near Fox’s ranch in this town of 2,400 as the presidents met.

Among them: a bronze handshake, one hand labeled “Bush” and the other “Fox.” And there was a bronze Fox boot, too, ready for the mantle.

In fact, the cowboy boots so popular in this arid central Mexican state of 4.7 million underscore aspects of the growing relationship between the two countries and even some of the problems Fox and Bush will have to contend with in years ahead.

Seeking to exploit the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, Fox worked hard to boost exports when he served as governor of Guanajuato from 1995 to 1999. Exports rose 12.8% in the year ending in September 1999, to $3.3 billion, according to state figures.

Maquiladora factories have sprouted outside cities such as Leon, and even the broccoli grown on Fox’s ranch is exported. Much of the export growth in the state is driven by a huge General Motors plant in Silao.

But it is the shoe industry that dominates the state. Guanajuato produces 110 million pairs of shoes a year, 52% of the national total. Shoe exports from the state in 1999 were worth $290 million, the state shoe association reported, 77% of which went to the United States.

The industry is omnipresent in Leon, to the extent that about 70% of its residents depend on shoes to earn a living, said Alejandra Mendoza, manager of foreign trade for the shoe association.

Shoe stores abound in Leon, many of them tiny family operations cluttering the side streets off the main avenue. The city even boasts two malls dedicated solely to shoes.

The Plaza del Zapato, one of the malls, has 66 shoe stores on two levels surrounding a fountain. Saleswoman Marisol Rozales, 28, said that with the boost from Fox’s taste for boots, the industry is really moving forward.

Sales boomed this week with the influx of Americans and Mexicans involved with the summit, she added. “People come in and ask what style of boot Fox wears,” she said.

Until a few years ago, Fox’s family industries included a small cowboy boot workshop that exported quality boots to the United States. One of the craftsmen from the factory, Martin Villegas, made the boots that were presented to Bush on Friday. Villegas now has his own designer boot workshop, producing 40 pairs a month.

But cowboy boots are also made for walking, and the boots favored by farmhands here evoke images of Guanajuato citizens trudging across the U.S.-Mexican border to work as migrant laborers.

Guanajuato is among Mexico’s largest exporters of people, with more than 1 million of its citizens believed to be living in the United States. There are 39 Guanajuato citizen clubs in the United States.

All week, residents of San Cristobal, Fox’s hometown, told visiting reporters that the best gift that Bush could give to Mexico would be a guest worker program making migration legal and safe.