Ridge pushes trade: top U.S. security official says secure border, unfettered commerce are not mutually exclusive.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge addressed a battery of key bilateral issues on his first day of a two-day visit in late February, outlining fast-track commercial advancements on the border, defending U.S. President Bush's migration plan and quoting Octavio Paz in saying the future is now.

Two weeks before President Fox's visit to Bush's ranch, the top internal security official spoke to a ballroom full of the nation's leading businessmen at an event sponsored by AMCHAM and ITAM university. He later dined with Interior Secretary Santiago Creel and met with Fox at Los Pinos.

Dramatic in his comments about the threat of terrorism, Ridge stressed, "The United States is a nation at war," and he characterized this fight against shadowy international terrorists as "the major test of our time."

LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR

Throughout his speech and the question-and-answer session that followed. Ridge said anti-terrorism vigilance on the border must not interfere with the close relationship between the two countries nor commerce in the region.

"We can shut down the border for security reasons--as any sovereign country has the right to do--but that imperils family connections and economic connections," said the two-time Pennsylvania governor and decorated Vietnam veteran. "We must show the terrorists that they cannot hold our economy hostage."

He applauded the recent opening of fast-lane border crossings in Laredo, Texas, for Mexican trucks (in addition to those already operating in El Paso). This feature of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, according to Ridge, is emblematic of the Bush administration's new approach to the border situation--namely, less security hassle for regular commercial associates frees up resources to monitor the more unknown visitors.

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Ridge also said that before raising the color of the U.S. terror alert, "I make two phone calls--one to my colleague in Mexico and the other to Canada."

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza--who joined Ridge on the dais along with AMCHAM President James Callahan and ITAM's Foreign Affairs Director Rafael Fernandez de Castro--also hit on this need for open communication in introducing Ridge. "The objective is not to wall off the U.S. from the rest of the world, but to make it more secure," Garza said.

COMPASSION FOR MIGRANTS

In surprisingly humanistic remarks for a security official, Ridge stressed the need to deal with illegal workers with compassion--defending Bush's controversial migration plan that would legitimize the status of Mexicans living illegally in the United States. Ridge expressed hope that Bush's proposal, criticized by some as an election-year concession to Hispanic voters, will persuade migrant workers to "come out of the shadows."

In addition to his gentle take on undocumented migrants (whom he called hard workers and good family people for sending money home), the Harvard graduate was critical of U.S. mistakes in the past in an effort to explain what many perceived as arrogantly isolationist moves by the U.S. administration.

"Not everything we do appears to make sense ... And the system we put in place after 9-11 didn't work very well," said Ridge, as key members of the Homeland Security team, Alfonso Martinez-Fonts and Asa Hutchinson, listened from the front row of the audience. "You cannot attack these problems [terrorism, drug trafficking, human smuggling] unilaterally."

In addressing the tense climate following the terrorist attacks of 2001, Ridge did partake in a bit of revisionist history. "The solidarity and support of Mexico on Sept. 11 and the days following will not be forgotten," he said, a curious statement considering Fox's remarkably tepid and tardy response to the 9-11 attack. Fox was silent and sat on the fence for several days before unconditionally condemning the attacks, and many commentators point to that inexplicable delay as the beginning of the bilateral tension that culminated in Mexico's refusal last year to back the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

However, relations are on the mend, as illustrated by Ridge's dialogue with Mexican business leaders and the March 5-6 presidential meeting, and the immediate need to repair the bilateral relationship was not lost on Ridge.

In quoting Mexican author Octavio Paz, Ridge said, "The superior value lies not the future, but the present."

Matthew Brayman is the editor of BUSINESS MEXICO.