His Excellency Ernesto Zedillo Ponce De Léon
President of Mexico

"Improving Relations Between Mexico and the United States"

Muchas, muchas gracias. Dear friends, I was in San Francisco yesterday and today as well as in Sacramento. Let me tell you, I didn’t leave my heart in San Francisco, but I did leave my written speech in San Francisco. I forgot it. So once again, I will take the enormous risk that I frequently enjoy of not speaking from the paper but rather from my heart.

First of all, let me tell you that my presence here today would not be possible if there wasn’t a fellow who came from the Bronx, who made a very long career in politics and public administration, guided always with a very profound sense of service, of honesty, and that at the time he decided to run for Governor of California, he also decided to take a risk. That risk was to say that, if he were governor, things about the relationship between Mexico and California would change. I don’t know whether he had very clever polls to say that that was a very clever political decision. I don’t really care. The real thing is that he took that decision, fortunately, and I can say afterwards, of course, but it’s a fact he won. Within his first month as governor of California he went down to Mexico, to Mexico City, and he was kind enough to visit the President of Mexico, that’s me. He said "Mr. President, Mexico is the most important country for California and we want to work for a new beginning. That’s why I’m here in Mexico and that’s why I want you in California." I said "I think you’re right, Governor Davis. Mexico is a very important country, of course, for we Mexicans, but it is good that you recognize that Mexico is the most important country for California, and, of course, you can count on my presence in beautiful California."

I told him at the time a bit about my frustration as President of Mexico. I was raised south of Calexico, only a few blocks from the borderline. In fact, I still have a house only five blocks away from the borderline, a house in which my family and my children spend many weeks every year--curiously enough, during the summer. It’s the only family in Mexico or anywhere who goes to Mexicali during the summer. But can you imagine my frustration, as President of Mexico, of having been raised in Mexicali, having a house in Mexicali where I spend some time and not being able to as President of Mexico in beautiful California? That was a big frustration, but that’s over because now you have Gray Davis as Governor of California.

This morning in a press meeting I was asked by a very clever news member the following: he said something like, "Mr. President, you and Governor Davis have been complaining about this absence of political relations, good political relations, between Mexico and California during the last few years, but at the same time you have been saying repeatedly how important economic relations between Mexico and California have become, particularly so after NAFTA, because trade has more than doubled in the last five years." So he said, "Probably you’re not being very consistent. How is that you didn’t have good political relations and at the same time you had very good trade?" And I said "My friend, you haven’t heard about opportunity cost. It is not what we have done which is good, but it is what we have foregone. Imagine what would have happened if we had been closer together. Trade has increased every year by 17%, even at a time at which certain politicians on both sides were not on speaking terms. What would have happened if we had been on good speaking terms, facilitating, promoting, getting our people closer together? Seventeen percent is very little, We can do much more. We will do more in terms of trade and investment, and that’s very important for Mexico because we need trade and investment to provide more jobs in Mexico, more opportunities in Mexico, because we want our people to work and to have those opportunities in Mexico. We also need more jobs and more opportunities in California because if the economy of California goes well, that is good for Mexico. Economics are very important, but it’s not everything in life, of course.

The other good reason I have to be here is that I want the Mexican people and the California people, beyond any economic interest, to be much closer, to communicate more easily, to understand each other in a more friendly way. I think that’s very important because, after all, we have a common border, a border that has enormous opportunities but also has significant problems that can only be tackled if we act together, if we cooperate, if we construct solutions together. We also have, whether we like it or not, a common history. Mr. Governor has just said, without making a pause, a number of cities and towns in California, and every one of those names has a Mexican origin and that’s common history and we have to continue sharing, acknowledging that history. We also have a common culture. There is a good part of California that could not be explained by the presence of Mexican people in this state and there are many features of contemporary Mexican culture [that] have been blended to a considerable extent by what has happened here in California in almost every field of culture, and I don’t need to mention movies. Now we are even partners in movies.

This is a little story. I was extremely moved one week after Titanic opened, I think in New York, it was shown in Mexico City and James Cameron was there, very nervous because he still didn’t know whether his movie was going to be a success and he made a presentation. I was moved when he said "Thank you" to the Mexican people, because it was workers in Mexico City that helped to build that very beautiful furniture that was used in the filming of the movie, it was many Mexican technicians that helped to film the movie, and it was many people that made that movie possible. Of course, most of the movie was filmed in no other place but Baja California, my home state, Rosarito. But we can say the same about literature, music, every aspect of our culture now has some influence, some presence of something that has been done here in California.

The point is that we’d better assume the reality that we are neighbors, as the Governor said, and work together. I think we have also, in looking into the futur, very good reasons to work togethe,r and I want to offer you the Mexican perspective. The Mexican perspective is that we are working very hard so that Mexico in the 21st century is a country that offers to its citizens economic prosperity, social justice and a strong democracy. I happen to believe that in order to develop any country--but certainly Mexico--you need to have the three elements together. You need to have a strong economy, not because the economy is important by itself, but because you need economic growth to generate the resources that provide people employment, that could provide opportunities and that would provide the government the necessary resources to support especially the most needy in the society. You also need to work towards social justice, especially in a country like Mexico that for many reasons still has significant poverty affecting many of its citizens, that it still has a very marked and dramatic inequality that cannot be solved by economic growth or by the market alone. We need to have active, directed, well-designed, well-thought out and focused social policies to tackle that poverty, to tackle that social inequality.

That is what we are doing in Mexico and sometimes it is very hard to convey the message that the counterpart of all economic reforms that have been undertaken in Mexico over the last decade is really that we are pursuing social policies, because before, when the Mexico state wanted to be the Big Brother, the Mexican state was spending too much energy, too much effort, too many resources in messing around with the economy and paying perhaps too little attention to its fundamental obligation which has to do, of course, with the well-being of the Mexican people. About ten years ago the Mexican government was providing for social purposes around 30% of its expenditures; today, we are providing in our budget 60%, twice as much relative to our budget to social means in the budget. Ten years ago we were spending around 5.5% of the GDP in social expenditures, [today] we are spending 9% of our GDP to social expenditure. It is true, we are not going to eliminate poverty or inequality from one day to the other, not from one presidential term to another, but I am convinced that if we keep ourselves on this track, on the track on the one hand of economic discipline and on the other hand of consistent, lucid, ambitious social policies, we will find a way and our children will have a more just Mexico, a more equal society.

Building a better country cannot be the result of one individual, not even the result of the will of good individuals. The energy, the social force to build a better country can only come from the whole Mexican society. In order to have that collective force, that collective motivation, that collective engine, we need to have some sort of political environment that can only be provided by a democracy. It is not sufficient to have economic growth, it is not sufficient to have government officials that build clever social policies in order to have long-term certainty, in order to have assurances that the future can be brighter. We need to have a good democracy; otherwise, the risk of frustration, the risk of failure will be very high. That’s why, even before I became President of Mexico, I offered the Mexican people that I would work hard, very hard, to have new political conditions in Mexico that have to do very simply with the principles and practices of democracy. Today, I can report to you that in that respect we are also doing fine. Mexico, not merely by virtue of what has been done during my administration, I must be very honest and frank about it, Mexico by virtue of a series of progressive reforms, some of them, of course, undertaken during my administration, is arriving fully at a democratic normality. Today in Mexico there is division of powers, and let me tell you sometimes that division of powers can be painful. But in the end I enjoy it very much because it brings democracy.

Today in Mexico there are checks and balances, not only among the powers of the state, but we have a free press, we have freedom of speech, we have numerous organizations of a civilized society that every day express themselves, sometimes that’s my personal view, they are very right, sometimes they say "Well, I don’t care," but in the end what’s important is that they are there and that they have the power, the freedom and the capacity to express themselves. Today in Mexico, there is intense political competition. Every time we have an election, we have intense competition. No candidate can say before-hand that he has a victory in his hand. In every election candidates have to work hard, have to convince people, have to get and earn the vote of the people. For me, my friends, that’s democracy, and for me, my friends, that’s building a new kind of political stability, political stability in which every time there’s an election the outcome is not certain because it will depend on the citizens’ work. The long term result is that things will be better off, because democracy at the end means the power of the people. Most of the time, most of the time, I would say almost always, the people are right and that’s democracy and that’s what we are building in Mexico.

So, if I put together these three elements I have to be very optimistic about the future of Mexico. Mexico had been a great nation for a long time, but that’s the past. We Mexicans want Mexico to be a great nation in the future. We have everything to make Mexico a great nation in the future, but as I have been saying on this trip, we don’t want to be alone. We are not an island, we don’t want to be isolated. We have to be in good company in our endeavor and, of course, neighbors close to us who respect our sovereignty, working on this endeavor is very important to us. With that ambition, California has to play a very key role. For material reasons, you are important for us but, and I must underline this, also for human reasons. Here in California, as the governor mentioned, one may mention many cities, many towns with Mexican names, and that’s important, but if I walk outside this street and if I go to a small shop, if I go to a factory, if I go a bank, if I go to the university, if I go anywhere, I will find a person of Mexican origin. This is, of course, the United States, this is California, this is Los Angeles, and we respect this country and we respect all the opportunities that this country has given to so many people. We even have a governor from the Bronx, that’s great. We cannot ignore that a part of our heart, part of our blood, part of our history is here in California, because those Mexicans, those citizens of Mexican origin, do love this country, do love the United States, they are working hard to be good citizens and to contribute to the progress of this great nation, but they are also very proud of their Mexican roots. These people have roots, have identity, have pride for their culture, the culture that [they] inherited [from] their grandparents and their parents, and that, my friends, simply cannot be ignored by us.

We believe that very for fundamental reasons, beyond any material reasons, [we are] connected to you; to work with you, to cooperate with you, to imagine projects with you, but to carry those projects out in practice. I am sure that, stemming from Governor Davis’ visit and from my visit to California, we will be able to do many things together. We, as politicians, will plan things, but in the end it will be up to businessmen in California, the businessmen in Mexico, and I am very happy that many of them are here today. It will be up to artists in California, to artists in Mexico, it will be up to educators in California, it will be up to educators in Mexico, it will be up to leaders of social organizations in Mexico and in California to make that project a reality. So today I encourage you, I submit to you as a project for the 21st century, to make Mexico and California even closer, even better neighbors, even better partners.

Thank you very much.