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[Congressional Record: December 4, 2000 (House)]
[Page H11942-H11943]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr04de00-77]
INAUGURATION OF MEXICAN PRESIDENT VICENTE FOX
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). Under a previous order of the
House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at a time when the world's attention is
focused on the presidential election here in the United States, I would
like to take a few minutes to talk about a very historic occurrence
that took place at the end of last week. I had the honor, along with
several of our colleagues, a delegation led by the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Gilman), the Secretary of State here, and several others,
including the Governor of California, Gray Davis, to represent the
United States at the inauguration of Vicente Fox in Mexico.
This inaugural took place last Friday morning. It was very thrilling
because it was clearly one of the most historic developments in modern
history for the western hemisphere. After over 7 decades of one-party
control where the Institutional Revolutionary Party, established in
1928, had controlled Mexico, we saw an election take place on July 2 at
which the opposition party, the National Action Party, and its nominee,
Vicente Fox, was successful.
When we look at what it is that actually brought these free and fair
elections about, it is very important to realize that it has been the
expansion of our Western values that has been responsible for it and
was really a coalition that consisted, I believe, of primarily the
statement that was first made by Ronald Reagan in November of 1979 when
he announced his candidacy for President in which he said he envisioned
an accord of the Americas where we would have the free flow of goods
and services.
As we all know, that ended up with legislation that passed in 1993
known as the North American Free Trade Agreement. While I know that
NAFTA is often maligned, we have to realize that there has been
tremendous success in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. We have
seen a dramatic increase in the standard of living in all three
countries, in large part due to the expanded trade that we have
enjoyed.
Now, what happened was that 6 years ago, following the beginning of
major economic reforms in Mexico, we saw the call by President Ernesto
Zedillo for free and fair elections. He established an organization
known as the IFE, the Federal Electoral Institute in Mexico, that would
in fact be independent of the government and oversee the electoral
process. It worked out extremely well, and we finally saw the
completion of that tie between economic and political freedom last
Friday.
We were very privileged, as I said, to be able to represent the
United States. Our governor, Gray Davis, was the first governor of
California since Earl Warren to attend an inauguration of a Mexican
president. I believe the significance of that and the representation
that we had from the United States is very, very important.
President Fox has a very interesting challenge ahead of him, but he
had some moving remarks in his inaugural address. He talked about the
challenge of improving the economy and making sure that no one in
Mexico is left behind. He said, ``We can't have islands of prosperity
amidst seas of poverty.'' His commitment to ensuring that the children
of Mexico are addressed, their needs are addressed and taken care of,
his commitment to making sure that
[[Page H11943]]
we see further deregulation so that the small business sector of Mexico
can thrive is very, very important.
I will say that there is another issue that is very important,
especially for my State of California, dealing with the challenge of
illegal immigration which has been very great. President Fox is the
first Mexican president to come forward and state unequivocally that
Mexico needs every Mexican, meaning that he wants to create an economy
so that people in Mexico will not have an incentive to flee across the
border into the United States.
I am very, very encouraged about this wonderful relationship that we
are going to have with Mr. Fox. I am convinced that the encouragement
which we have provided through that election process has been very,
very key to the success that we are seeing. I look forward to working
with him and with my colleagues to strengthen this very, very important
relationship.
____________________
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