MEXICO'S PRESIDENT REWRITES THE RULES

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 -- Rarely has a foreign leader shown up on the South
Lawn of the White House and declared that he and the president of the
United States "must" remake the fundamental rules that have governed his
country's uneasy relationship with the United States -- and get it done in
the next four months.

Yet for President Vicente Fox of Mexico, that was just a start. On Thursday
he used an address to Congress to insist on an end to the humiliating
ritual of annually certifying that his country was cracking down on drug
traffickers. And he argued that that the lawmakers should immediately make
good on their Nafta commitment to open American roads to Mexican trucks.
Lastly, as he left town, he declared that the collective security pact that
for half a century has cemented the military ties between Mexico, the
United States and much of Latin America ought to be scrapped and that he
might pull out of the pact.

Such assertiveness is especially notable because it did not come out of the
mouth of the leader of a nuclear power or an economic juggernaut. Yet Mr.
Fox seemed to pull it off with aplomb during his remarkable visit here,
casting himself not only as a political equal of his friend the American
president, but as the leader of Latin America. Often as Mr. Fox spoke,
President Bush stood nodding at his side, endorsing his principles, even
while fudging on the timetable and the politics of it all.

"In many ways this was the reversal of all the traditional roles between
the United States and Mexico," said Robert A. Pastor, a professor at Emory
University and a former National Security Council official in the Carter
administration, who has long been involved in Mexican-American relations.

"In the past it has been the United States that made all the specific
proposals," Mr. Pastor said, "and the Mexicans who said 'yes,' but never
said when. This time, President Fox made all the proposals, and it was his
good friend President Bush who had to say 'yes,' but couldn't say when."

White House officials said they were not surprised by any of Mr. Fox's
proposals, all of which they said had been discussed since intensive talks
began in February. But clearly, the two leaders' schedules for
accomplishing it all are not in sync -- a reflection of the political
pressure on Mr. Fox to move as fast as possible, and the pressure on Mr.
Bush to shift into low gear.

If Mr. Fox played the role of equal, rather than junior partner this week,
it was Mr. Bush who gave him the opportunity.

In the middle of the presidential campaign last year, Mr. Bush repeatedly
heralded his friendship with Mr. Fox, who promised long-delayed economic
and political changes. "He's a man I know from Mexico," Mr. Bush said in
the presidential debates, when he was under pressure to show some
familiarity with foreign affairs. Mr. Bush promised that the two leaders
would remake the often strained and unequal relationship between the two
countries.

Mr. Bush's first trip abroad was to Mr. Fox's ranch. Once there, he
repeated his determination to make the United States-Mexican relationship
his top foreign policy priority -- even if the British and the Japanese,
not to mention the Russians and the Chinese, cringe every time he utters
those words.

Mr. Bush, however, is also discovering that a personal friendship is not
enough to create the political environment required to turn their broad,
mutual agenda into action.

That is especially true when the subject turns to immigration, the most
emotion-laden and complex problem facing the two countries -- and one that
divides the Republican Party.

Both men learned how deeply that division runs today. Mr. Fox was received
with polite enthusiasm in Congress and earned praise for his commitment to
democracy.

But Mr. Fox's visit coincided with the news that unemployment in the United
States rose to 4.9 percent in August. In back-room conversations with the
White House this week many Republicans made it clear that the coming
Congressional election year was not the time to legalize the status of
nearly 3.5 million illegal Mexican workers in the United States, even if
the effort was couched in neutral-sounding terms like "regularization" of
migrants.

"It's going to be very, very difficult," said Senator Chuck Hagel,
Republican of Nebraska, who strongly supports immigration reform. He agrees
with Mr. Fox and Mr. Bush that migrant workers are a critical part of the
American economy.

But Mr. Hagel noted that on Thursday night it took enormous political
lifting just to extend a modest provision allowing certain illegal
immigrants with jobs or family sponsors to remain in the country while
applying for a green card.

"To get that done last night you would have thought it was a matter of
declaring war," Mr. Hagel said. A broad program to allow millions of
illegal immigrants to obtain legal status, he said, "is going to be very
tough when all the marbles are on the table -- American jobs and the
control of Congress."

Mr. Bush faces perhaps his staunchest opposition in the House, where the
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative F. James
Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, and the leader of the panel's
immigration subcommittee, Representative George W. Gekas, Republican of
Pennsylvania, oppose any legalization of undocumented immigrants.

In the Senate, Republican opponents include Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and
Phil Gramm of Texas, who view any legalization plan as a magnet for
lawbreakers. "You earn your way to get here by applying legally and coming
legally," Mr. Gramm said. "You don't reward people who violated the law in
coming here."

The political pressures flow in the other direction as well. American
businesses, a crucial Republican constituency, want access to low- wage
migrant workers, and they endorse Mr. Fox's plan for a "guest worker"
program. Mr. Bush talks constantly of finding a way for a "willing
employer" to strike a deal with a "willing worker," but hedges on how broad
an amnesty he might be willing to grant.

But on Thursday, Mr. Bush acknowledged that "to make matters even more
complicated, we've got to work with the Congress, and we've got to come up
with a solution that Congress can accept." His aides have made it clear
that any such deal is not likely by Mr. Fox's deadline of the end of the year.

In his seven and a half months in office, Mr. Bush has not gone as far out
on a limb for any other foreign leader. Clearly he treasures his personal
relationship with Mr. Fox -- the kind of leader-to-leader diplomacy that
his father favored -- just as he thought it important to emphasize the bond
he had created with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

But such friendship has its risks, because it associates Mr. Bush with
almost all of Mr. Fox's agenda. For example, Mr. Fox was able to prompt Mr.
Bush to say that he would veto legislation that kept Mexican trucks off
American roads -- where they are entitled to drive under the Nafta treaty.

"It was quite amazing to hear President Bush talk about how much he wanted
to 'accommodate my friend,' " said Mr. Pastor, the Emory University
professor. "But President Bush never came back with a specific vision of
where he wanted to go that responded to Fox's vision. That was
conspicuously missing."