Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
September 7, 2000 -- Page: S8212

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I send a bill to the desk. I submit this bill on behalf of myself, Senator Domenici, Senator Dodd, and Senator Feinstein.

The purpose of the bill is to put a 1-year moratorium on the decertification process for Mexico as it relates to the illegal drug trafficking issue that we have been dealing with for so long. The reason we are introducing this bill and hope for expedited procedures is that we have just seen a huge election in Mexico in which, for the first time in 71 years, there is a president from the opposition party, from the PRI, which has been the ruling party in Mexico all this time.

Democracy is beginning to be real in Mexico, and we want to do everything we can to encourage this democracy. We want to do everything we can to have good relations, better relations, with our sister country to the south, Mexico.

Vicente Fox has visited the United States. He has opened the door for better relations. I know our next President, whoever he may be, will also want to do the same thing.

It is a very simple bill. It is a bill that says for 1 year we are not going to go through the certification-decertification process, and hopefully our two new Presidents will begin a new era of cooperation in this very tough issue that plagues both of our countries. Having a criminal element in Mexico and a criminal element in the United States certainly is a cancer on both of our countries, and we want to do everything we can to improve the cooperation in combating this issue.

The inauguration of Vicente Fox as President of Mexico on December 1st should usher in a sea change in Mexican politics as well as the U.S.-Mexico relationship. Not only will 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) come to an end, but hopefully so too will come an end to the flood of illegal drugs from Mexico into the United States.

Despite the promise of a new day in our relationship with Mexico, a dark cloud looms on the horizon--the annual drug certification ritual in which Congress requires the President to 'grade' drug-producing and drug-transit countries each March 1 on their progress in the war on drugs.

The facts have remained essentially unchanged over the past several years. Mexico is the source of about 20-30% of the heroin, up to 70% of the foreign grown marijuana, and the transit point for 50-60% of the cocaine shipped into the United States.

Mexico has never been decertified, but the thought of being in the company of Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan on this list, has done little except to antagonize their political leadership and thwart expanded cooperation. There is no reason to go through this exercise next March and grade President Fox after fewer than 120 days in office. Further, with a new U.S. President taking office on January 20, there is no reason to set up a major confrontation between the two before they have even had an opportunity to work together cooperatively.

I am proud to introduce legislation with Senators Pete Domenici, Christopher Dodd, and Dianne Feinstein which will grant Mexico a 1-year waiver from the annual certification process. I hope the Congress will pass this waiver legislation before we adjourn.

This 1-year waiver will give President Fox the time he needs to develop and implement a new drug-fighting strategy in Mexico. And it will give the United States the time we need to work with President Fox in the creation of this new strategy, and to finally put in place the law enforcement needed to stop the flow of drugs across our 2000-mile shared border.

The United States has enjoyed a long-term partnership with Mexico that has grown closer and more cooperative over time. The North American Free Trade Agreement cemented and strengthened our relationship--and our interdependence. Just last year, Mexico surged past Japan as our nation's second largest trade partner.

But partnership is a two-way exchange, and in recent years we have drifted into tolerance of unacceptable conditions in the arena of drug trafficking and the endemic corruption it causes in communities on both sides of the border. The border has been a sieve for drugs, and it has resulted in a degree of lawlessness in Texas and along the U.S.-Mexico border that we have not seen since the days of the frontier. Even worse, the war on drugs plays out daily on nearly every schoolyard across our nation.

I am more optimistic than ever, though, by the election of Vicente Fox, that Mexico is prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to contain the drug threat. And as he seeks to make progress on this almost overwhelming issue, we do not need to poison the spirit of early cooperation by injecting drug certification.

Specifically, this bill waives for one-year only the requirement that the President certify Mexico's cooperation with the United States in the war on drugs. This waiver does not exempt Mexico from any of the reports or other activities associated with the certification process. It simply says the President does not need to `grade' Mexico by choosing between certification, decertification, or decertification with a national interest waiver.

This 1-year drug certification waiver will give both the United States and Mexico time to develop a process that will make us partners rather than adversaries in addressing the one issue that can make moot all of the promising opportunities between our two nations.

Still, President-elect Fox and the Government of Mexico should make no mistake about the priority the United States places on winning the war on drugs. We will expect this to be a top priority of our new President, and we hope that this will be a priority of President Fox.

The Mexican government must take effective, good-faith steps to stop the narco-corruption that infects and demoralizes both of our countries. We ask them to take effective action to destroy the major drug cartels and imprison their kingpins, implement laws to curtail money laundering, comply with U.S. extradition requests, increase interdiction efforts and cooperate with U.S. law enforcement agencies.

President-elect Fox has shown every willingness to work with the United States in developing these objectives. He knows the challenges ahead, and especially the ones that will come as Mexico's democracy continues to evolve and be tested. The United States should not add the pressures of the certification process next year to a situation so full of risks and opportunities.