BUSH, FOX PLEDGE TO WORK TOGETHER

SAN CRISTOBAL, Mexico--In shirtsleeves and open collars, President Bush and
Mexican President Vicente Fox promised greater cooperation Friday in
dealing with illegal drugs, immigration and energy shortages.

Stopping short of specific commitments, the two leaders spoke of a "shared
prosperity" between the United States and Mexico.

Bush, on the first foreign trip of his presidency, made use of his limited
Spanish to symbolize the kind of warm relationship he intends to build with
his neighbor to the South.

"Each nation has a new president and a new perspective," Bush said at an
outdoor news conference with Fox, where both leaders shed their suitcoats
and neckties.

"Geography has made us neighbors. Cooperation and respect will make us
partners, and the promise of the partnership was renewed and reinvigorated
today," Bush said.

Their statements, delivered side by side beneath shade trees at Fox's
ranch, were overshadowed by questions of U.S. air strikes against Iraq.
Bush said it was a routine mission intended to force Iraq to abide by
United Nations mandates.

Fox heralded as a "clear message" the fact that Bush made Mexico his first
foreign trip: "This starting point is very encouraging so that Mexicans and
Americans together can inaugurate an era of shared prosperity together."

Replied Bush, "I intended it to be that way. Our nations are bound together
by ties of history, family, values, commerce and culture."

Bush said the two, in their private meetings, spent considerable time on
how best to share energy resources and the possibility of energy
exploration in Canada, the United States and Mexico. "It is a hemispheric
issue and it needs to be elevated to the presidential level," Bush said.

He refused to say whether he would ask Congress to nullify a 14-year-old
law requiring the U.S. president to certify annually how Mexico and some
two dozen other countries are cooperating in the fight against drug
trafficking. Mexico views the process as condescending.

Bush said he trusts Fox when the Mexican president says he is committed to
an all-out fight with drug traffickers. "He's the kind of man you can look
in the eye and know he's shooting straight with you," Bush said.

He also acknowledged America's responsibility for creating the demand that
drives the drug trade.

"United States citizens use drugs. And our nation must do a better job of
educating our citizenry about the dangers and evils of drug use," Bush said.

On immigration, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the two countries
were forming a special panel including himself, Attorney General John
Ashcroft and top Mexican officials, to deal with questions of migration and
labor.

Touching down in Leon, Mexico, hours earlier, Bush greeted Fox with open
arms and the two set off to the nearby farm town of San Cristobal, about
210 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Their motorcade rolled past dusty farm fields, clusters of goats and
telephone poles bearing placards that showed two hands joined beneath the
U.S. and Mexican flags and the slogan "Prosperando Juntos"-- "Prospering
Together."