LOOKING SOUTH

"SOME look south and see problems; not me," President Bush said yesterday
as he prepared to embark for Mexico on his first foreign trip. It is good
that this president begins with such optimism and energy in addressing the
issues of this hemisphere, because it looks as if Latin America will be
considerably more challenging for his administration than it was for the last.

For the most part, the problems do not lie in Mexico, where Mr. Bush today
will visit the ranch of another newly inaugurated president, Vicente Fox.
After being helped out of a financial crisis by the Clinton administration
six years ago, Mexico has rapidly grown into the second largest U.S. trade
partner after Canada, and Mr. Fox's election has marked a new era of
greater democracy.

Though today's talks may be light on substance, Mr. Bush and Mr. Fox have a
chance to give U.S.-Mexican relations a fresh start on such issues as drug
trafficking, immigration and border controls.

One easy way to start improving the dialogue would be to stop the
administration's annual certifications to Congress about Mexico's good
behavior on drug interdiction; Mr. Bush should support one of the proposals
now circulating to repeal this counterproductive process.

Mr. Fox may also make a good discussion partner as Mr. Bush looks at the
more serious challenges that have emerged around the region.

Colombia's war against drugs and guerrillas of the left and right is
killing a dozen people a day, and it threatens to spill over into
neighboring countries; a large U.S. aid program is controversial both in
Latin American and in Congress and has not yet proven itself.

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has embarked on a course of populist
adventurism that could lead his country, an OPEC nation, into serious
conflict with its neighbors or with the United States. Perhaps most
significant, Mr. Bush faces a summit with leaders of the hemisphere in
Quebec in April -- and foremost in those leaders' minds will be the
question of how committed Mr. Bush will be to negotiating new free-trade
agreements. A serious commitment will mean obtaining fast-track authority
from Congress, which in turn will mean building a bipartisan coalition and
fashioning compromises on labor and environmental issues.

At the State Department yesterday, Mr. Bush pledged that building "a
hemisphere bound together by shared ideas and free trade, from the Arctic
to the Andes to Cape Horn . . . will be a fundamental commitment of my
administration." Mexico is a good place to start -- but much work, and
probably some serious trials, lies ahead.