Mexico City Outlines Joint Effort With U.S.

Declaring that “this problem is ours too,” Mexican President Vicente Fox on Thursday outlined anti-terrorism measures that his nation is undertaking with the United States, including tighter border control and investigations of bank accounts in search of money launderers.

Annoyed by news articles in both countries suggesting that his government had provided less than wholehearted support to the U.S. after attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Fox noted that he has spoken three times with President Bush and has fully committed Mexico to an American-led anti-terrorism campaign.

In a meeting with American reporters, Fox said Mexico had canceled all of its Independence Day celebrations worldwide, set for Sept. 16, and taken other steps to express its solidarity with the United States and the victims of the attacks, who are believed to include scores of Mexicans.

“But more important are actions. And we are taking security measures on the border and supporting intensively, minute by minute, the authorities on the U.S. side,” Fox said. “We are exchanging information and making joint decisions on the border on customs and security.”

He said Mexican officials had interviewed all suspected illegal migrants being held in government detention centers. Mexico at any given time has several hundred foreigners in custody, most of them arrested while trying to enter the United States illegally. Fox said information on this issue is being exchanged with the FBI.

“This problem is ours too, of course it is,” Fox added. “We feel this problem as our own, and we are going to act with solidarity, with commitment, alongside all the countries that are in this struggle, and particularly the United States.

“We are friends, we are neighbors, we are partners, we are not going to hide ourselves in a moment when a friend, a partner, a neighbor needs us. We are allies in the struggle against terrorism.”

While some critics have questioned the Mexican government’s commitment to the U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, others have said Fox and his foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, have gone too far in supporting the Bush administration.

Fox said every country has such dissident voices, “but the broad majority view, the sustained view in opinion polls, 90% or more, support the view I am expressing.”

A U.S. government official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was disappointed that “the Mexican political class and media have tried to make points off” the supposed lack of support.

“The [Mexican] government has been enormously helpful by and large,” the official said. “The law enforcement cooperation has been great. Anything that we would reasonably ask them to do, they’ve responded.”

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a political analyst who studies U.S.-Mexico relations, said the emergence of terrorism as a serious threat, in addition to the issues of drug trafficking and organized crime, makes it “even more important not to isolate ourselves. An isolated Mexico that does not participate fully in international efforts to combat these problems has no chance.”