Mexico gives Richardson warm welcome, doubts NAFTA will be re-negotiated
President-elect Barack Obama's pick for commerce secretary, Bill Richardson,
got a warm welcome Thursday during a visit to Mexico, where government
officials said they doubted Obama would follow through on a campaign pledge
to re-negotiate NAFTA.
The New Mexico governor met with businessmen at the private University of
the Americas in Cholula, a town just east of Mexico City, a day after Obama
nominated him for the Cabinet post.
A businessman in the crowd called for a round of applause for Richardson's
Cabinet selection. Former Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Ernesto Derbez
— who accompanied Richardson — joked of the timing of the visit: "We had it
planned."
"It's great to be back in Mexico, great to be at this great university which
I've had a long association with," said Richardson, who grew up in Mexico.
Derbez deflected questions directed at Richardson about the North American
Free Trade Agreement. "We won't give any answers to those questions," he
said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon's conservative government staunchly
opposes reopening NAFTA, a possibility Obama raised at a Feb. 26 debate
during the Democratic primaries.
"I will make sure that we re-negotiate in the same way that Senator
(Hillary) Clinton talked about," Obama said then, referring to the trade
pact. "I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage
to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are
enforced."
Earlier Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Alberto Cardenas said he thought it
was "a little remote" that the United States would actually try to reopen
the trade accord, implemented in 1994.
"If in the campaign, at some given moment in some American state, the
president-elect was heard to make such a statement, I think we shouldn't get
ahead of ourselves," Cardenas told reporters. "I see it as a little remote
that such a re-negotiation would actually take place."
Some U.S. labor groups say the trade accord has cost American jobs, but
Mexican and U.S. officials say its net effect has been positive, boosting
trade and employment on both sides of the border. Canada is also a member of
the pact.
The Best Road Maps for Mexico
|
Contact us at editor@ontheroadin.com or editor@jaltembasol.com Submit pictures, articles and comments!