Dear Friends and Colleagues:

Today, Mexico and the United States took a significant step forward in increasing our commitment to free trade in North America by inaugurating a one-year pilot program leading to cross-border trucking. Under the program, approximately 100 Mexican trucking companies will begin to carry international shipments to and from destinations in the U.S. American trucking companies will soon begin the same cross-border transportation in Mexico. This initiative is a important step toward completing NAFTA’s promise of expanded economic opportunity and prosperity throughout North America, while at the same time upholding stringent security requirements and the very highest environmental and road safety standards.

Click here to read more about this important pilot project

Also today, the government of the Mexican state of Guerrero and the Mexican Secretaria de Energia (SENER) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to provide isolated rural communities in Mexico with electricity produced by solar, wind and micro-hydro sources. A joint effort of the U.S. and Mexican governments and the private sector under the U.S. Presidential Clean Energy Initiative (CEI), the pilot project will be replicated in other Mexican states and will soon bring electricity to 50,000 households and 250,000 individuals. The World Bank, federal, state and municipal governments, the private sector and the U.S. government have contributed over USD $110,000,000 to the effort. The U.S. Embassy alone, through its Agency for International Development (USAID), has provided USD$700,000 in assistance.

Click here to read more about this agreement

In addition to these events today, in the past two months we have welcomed a large number of high-level U.S. officials to Mexico. And this March, President Bush will visit Merida to meet with President Calderon to discuss ways of further enhancing our bilateral cooperation.

Since President Calderon took office on December 1, 2006, our countries’ two Presidents, new members of President Calderon’s administration, and their counterparts in Washington have done a great deal to deepen our bilateral relationship. On January 24, 2007, our two Presidents spoke on the phone and President Bush commended President Calderon for the efforts of the government of Mexico to bring law and order and to combat drug trafficking and violence in Mexico. Of course, in the next month, our Mission will be head-long into preparations for the meeting between our two leaders in Merida on March 12-14.

Click here to read more about the call between the two leaders
Click here to read more about President’s Bush’s upcoming visit.

On January 11, 2007, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales traveled to Mexico City to meet with Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora to discuss a broad range of issues in our law enforcement relationship, including transnational organized crime and violence

Click here to read more about U.S. Attorney General Gonzales’s visit

Shortly after the Attorney General’s visit, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez came to Mexico City and highlighted the solid commitment of the United States to improving our economic and trade ties and developing profitable business partnerships between Mexican and American firms, especially small- and medium-sized businesses.

Click here to read more about U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez’s visit

Last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was in town to meet with key Mexican officials to discuss immigration and security issues. The meetings, coming soon after the visit of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and just prior to that of President Bush, attest to our leaders’ understanding that the future of both our nations depends on finding and implementing new strategies to fight the many forces that bring instability to our border and endanger our citizens.

Click here to read more about Secretary Chertoff’s visit

Also last week, I welcomed U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes to Mexico for a four-day visit to Mexico City, Chiapas and Guadalajara. Under Secretary Hughes’s visit to Mexico gave me the opportunity to share with her some of Mexico’s treasures and to get back to Chiapas. We were also able to see firsthand several projects in which the U.S. and Mexico are working together to promote prosperity and our common values.

Click here to read more about Under Secretary Hughes’ visit

On January 20, 2007, both the Mexican and the American people celebrated a monumental moment in our two nations’ battle with the vicious drug-traffickers and criminals who threaten our very way of life. On that day, Mexican officials extradited to the United States some of the most brutal criminals in the history of our two countries, including Osiel Cardenas Guillen, a feared and violent drug-trafficker and the former head of the Gulf Cartel; Ismael and Gilberto Higuera Guerrero, brothers and former chiefs in the Arellano-Felix cartel in Tijuana and Mexicali; and Hector Palma Salazar, former leader in the Chapo Guzman-Güero Palma cartel. Since this unprecedented day of cooperation, Mexico has continued to demonstrate its commitment to extraditing criminals to the United States, building on an already record-number of total extraditions in 2006.

Click here to read more about these unprecedented extraditions

In the midst of all of our “high-level” bilateral meetings and activities of the past two months, our Embassy’s junior officers were dedicating themselves to perhaps the most fundamental lesson of diplomacy—that our shared humanity knows no borders and that, by giving generously to others, we enrich our own lives immeasurably. Recently, the Mission’s junior officers learned that the Asociacion Mexicana de Ayuda a Niños con Cancer (AMANC) was in great need of an industrial-sized washer and dryer for their center for sick children. They organized a “Give Your Heart to a Child with Cancer” campaign that culminated in an Embassy-wide auction which raised over USD $15,000. U.S. companies Whirlpool and Church & Dwight were also involved in the effort and kindly donated the industrial-sized washer and a year’s worth of laundry detergent. On Valentine’s Day, representatives from the Embassy community and I joyfully delivered the donation, along with clothes and toys, to Señora Guadalupe Alejandre, founder and President of AMANC.

Click here to read more about these charitable activities of our Mission employees

Finally, building upon already strong educational ties between Mexico and my home state of Texas, on January 25th, I hosted a reception for a delegation of leaders from the University of Texas system and many of the system’s over 1200 Mexican alumni. The delegation came to Mexico to explore opportunities for new educational partnerships and programs, and of course, found boundless prospects to expand our educational cooperation.

Click here to see pictures of the Texas reception
Click here to read the text of University of Texas President Powers’ speech at the reception

As you can see, we have enjoyed two very exciting months in Mission Mexico. Each of the high-level bilateral meetings we have had recently has provided us with an unprecedented opportunity for great progress in making Mexico and United States safer for all of our citizens and in maximizing the productivity and competitiveness of our economies. The meeting of our two Presidents in March will give us yet another important opportunity to build on our already deeply cooperative relationship.

As always, thank you for allowing me to share with you the activities of our Mission in Mexico. May God bless Mexico and the United States.

Sincerely,

Antonio O. Garza, Jr.

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