The New York Times and LA Times lead with President Obama’s visit to Mexico this morning. On his first day of a 4-day visit to the region, Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon Thursday, pledging a “new era of cooperation and partnership” between the U.S. and Mexico. The highlight of Thursday’s talks was President Obama’s urging of the U.S. Senate to ratify a stalled inter-American treaty aimed at curbing illegal arms trafficking in the Americas, also suggesting he would not press Congress to revive an expired assault weapons ban. With respect to the treaty, the NYT writes that it was originally signed by President Clinton, was held up in the Senate, but eventually went into effect in 1998 after two dozen other nations ratified it. “The treaty seeks to crack down on illicit firearms by, among other things, establishing a system for the import, export and transfer of firearms, and by fostering cooperation among law enforcement agencies investigating illegal trafficking,” says the paper. The LAT report on the Mexico meeting underscores Mr. Obama’s statements on the the assault weapons ban in the U.S. The paper quotes the president as saying “‘None of us is under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy,’” saying “his comments indicated that the political clout of gun rights advocates” is still very strong. The Mexican government has seized 16,000 assault weapons since President Calderon took office in December 2006 while the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says 90% of weapons seized in Mexico and reported to the agency can be traced to the United States.
Meanwhile, the Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal focus on Cuba in the run-up to the Summit of the Americas which begins today. The MH says the issue of what to do with Cuba is increasingly becoming a central issue of the Summit. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza repeated Thursday his belief that Cuba should be readmitted to the Inter-American system in an interview with the MH. While in Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez, meeting with his closest allies from the ALBA alliance before the Summit, said Thursday that “from the moment the curtain goes up, Cuba will appear on the stage.” Chávez also said he would “veto” the final declaration due to be issued by this weekend's Fifth Summit of the Americas in neighboring Trinidad and Tobago, although it is unclear if that is even possible. Also at the Venezuela meeting, Raúl Castro said Cuba has “sent word to the U.S. government in private and in public” that it is open to talking about anything, including political prisoners and human rights, as long as it's “on equal terms.” While in the WSJ, a report that President Obama has said his administration had “gone as far as it would for now in easing U.S. policy toward Cuba” and would wait for reciprocal gestures from Havana before taking further action. According to a WSJ editorial, the best move President Obama could make on Cuba at the Summit would be to call on other leaders to denounce the Cuban regime's human rights violations, saying “the embargo has not worked to free Cuba, but a hemisphere united against the Castro tyranny has never been tried.”
And, in the Washington Post this morning a report on Brazil and its economy. The WaPo writes that optimism still exists in the country even as “the once-robust Brazilian economy contracted 3.6 percent” over the last three months, “on par with some of the largest declines in emerging-market countries around the world.” According to the paper, unemployment has also risen, and the government recently launched a program to build 1 million houses to jump-start the economy. Nevertheless, what gives many economists hope, notes the paper, is the fact that Brazilian banks appear stable with high levels of reserves and sturdy domestic demand for products that keeps many businesses moving, if now more slowly than before. Economists predict that Brazil will have roughly zero economic growth in 2009 and that Mexico's economy, the second largest in the region, will shrink. Latin America has suffered from dropping prices of such commodities as oil, soy and copper, as well as reduced investment and weakened currencies, but “financial sector problems that have hurt the United States and European countries are less of a concern here,” maintains the WaPo report.
In other news, more on President Obama’s meeting with Mexico in the WaPo and WSJ. In the WaPo, besides talk of guns and drug violence, the paper says trade, immigration, and the energy/environment were also discussed Thursday. The two men said they would resolve a trade dispute originating in a vote last month by the U.S. Congress to cancel a pilot program allowing Mexican truckers on U.S. highways, as permitted by the North American Free Trade Agreement and announced a new partnership to promote clean energy and reduce greenhouse gases in both countries by sharing academic research and promoting alternative energy sources. In the WSJ piece, the paper focuses on the mechanisms in place in the U.S. for preventing guns from flowing South, or lack thereof. The paper says a recent internal government assessment of the gun trade named Laredo as a top pipeline for Mexican drug cartels where resources for stopping outbound trafficking include only a toll gate where $3 is collected from every passing vehicle.
In both the WaPo and NYT, two reports on Haiti as Sec. of State Hillary Clinton visited the country Thursday. The WaPo says the country “offers perhaps the most worrisome example of how the recession could worsen poverty in the region's vulnerable countries.” Clinton said the Obama administration is considering granting temporary legal status to Haitians who have come to the United States illegally so they could still keep sending money home during the economic crisis. The NYT adds that Ms. Clinton came to Haiti with about $300 million in American aid, including $15 million in emergency food assistance, $20 million to rebuild the country’s shattered roads and bridges and $2 million to train police officers.
Also, in the NYT, another story on how Latin American leaders will seek to re-define their relationship with the U.S. at this weekend’s Summit. In the MH, an AP report on how Bolivian police apparently broke up an assassination plot in Santa Cruz involving assassins from Hungary, Croatia, and Ireland, plotting to kill President Evo Morales. The confrontation ended with a 30 minute gun fight that left three suspects dead. In the WSJ, news that Nicaragua issued Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra a passport in order that he continues leading anti-government protests from abroad. And, in an argument against the Cuba embargo, columnist Michael Kinsley maintains in the WaPo that “our Cuba policy is held hostage by a zealous ethnic minority (actually a small minority of a minority) that makes the Israel lobby look as cuddly and unthreatening as the president's new puppy.”
Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP
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