MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Calderon willing to address NAFTA issues with Obama

President Felipe Calderon

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said he is willing to cooperate with incoming US president Barack Obama to address aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, which links the economies of the United States, Mexico and Canada and has boosted trade several times.

In remarks after a meeting at the White House with President George W. Bush, Calderon said that he is ready to review "issues of concern" to both countries regarding NAFTA, notably in the areas of the environment and labour protections. Calderon emphasized the importance of NAFTA, saying that it had been "very useful and profitable" for the two countries, basically with the creation of millions of jobs in the United States and turning Mexico into he second-largest importer of U.S. goods. The Mexican leader who spent three days in Washington earlier in the week met with President-elect Obama and they discussed trade relations and drugs among other things according to reports in the Mexican press. Calderon said that in the meeting with Obama he spoke about his readiness "to continue working on future additions of a way to continue to build on the achievements that NAFTA has created". He also said he was open to taking up with Obama questions about workers' protection and the environment. The president-elect promised during his election campaign to change those chapters of the treaty. They have been high in the agenda of issues promoted by the Democrats and the US trade unions and environmentalists. In the meeting with outgoing president Bush, Calderon also brought up issues like the drug-related violence that is blamed for nearly 9,000 deaths in Mexico over the past two years. Calderon said at the White House that the challenge posed by organized crime and drug trafficking "is not an isolated problem for any country. This is a common problem that affects us both." "We have a strong commitment in order to fight and defeat the criminals in Mexico, and we will do so," he said. Bush offered a vote of confidence in Calderon's crime-fighting efforts. "I want our fellow citizens to understand that this man understands the responsibilities of government to provide security; that he will not allow his country, or parts of his country, to be taken over by narco-traffickers," the president said of his Mexican counterpart.