CHAVEZ POSES A BIGGER CHALLENGE TO U.S. INTERESTS THAN CASTRO

WASHINGTON Even Latin American revolutionaries have use-by dates today:
Fresher models roll out for changing times. Colin Powell and Jorge
Casta=F1eda, Mexico's foreign minister, spent one minute discussing Cuba's
Fidel Castro and 10 minutes on Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in talks here the
other day.

The Beard Also Sets might be Hemingway's take on this evolution in
revolution. By claiming a key role for himself in oil politics, supporting
rebel forces in Colombia and befriending Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Mr. Chavez
casts a much longer and darker shadow today over U.S. global interests than
does the fading Mr. Castro.

What to do about Hugo will be a major early theme for the Bush
administration as it confronts the emerging reality that globalization
begins at home. President Bush has promised to focus early on hemispheric
affairs, and he is right to do so.

Even the godfather of globalization, Robert Rubin, the former treasury
secretary, pointed out to a Washington audience last month how that
phenomenon begins at home. Keeping U.S. borders open for eight years to
drive a new wave of world commerce and finance was a major Clinton
administration accomplishment, Mr. Rubin said.

But the rush of products, people and capital across the borders of the
Americas and elsewhere brings bad as well as good - drugs and drug money as
well as investment returns and cheap toys. There is a dark side to the free
trade imperative that drives globalization. It needs to be assessed in a
sober and systematic fashion.

One glimpse of the impact of that dark side on American lives comes in the
new hit movie "Traffic," a tale of Mexico, the United States and the drug
trade. Mr. Castaneda and his aides went to see the film in Washington after
finishing their meetings with General Powell and Condoleezza Rice. "Traffic"
has not yet opened in Mexico.

It is a measure of the welcome change occurring south of the Rio Grande when
a Mexican foreign minister goes from talks with the secretary of state and
the president's national security adviser to a mere movie.

But art can be smarter than life - smarter at least than those American
policy-makers who proclaim they are winning the "war" on drugs by
defoliating agricultural fields in Colombia while doing little to restrict
U.S. demand or to help Americans who have ruined their lives with narcotics
rehabilitate themselves.

Steven Soderbergh's film makes that point, a Castaneda aide noted. He found
the film "balanced" - that is, the movie puts heavy emphasis on the demand
problem here and on the hypocrisy of an overly militarized and punitive
policy that hits American families harder than it hits the drug trade.

Mr. Castaneda spun finely filigreed answers of substance and candor to
reporters' questions about immigration, reform in Mexico, the North American
Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and other first-tier problems he discussed
with Mr. Powell and Ms. Rice. But he was too shrewd to play critic and
instead left it to aides to comment about a movie that offers such an
intimate portrayal of a vast social evil.

Mr. Castaneda came to office with President Vicente Fox in December. Mr. fox
has just begun to explain to his nation the mess he found in the Mexican
criminal justice system and to try to establish control, gradually, on drug
enforcement and internal security. He will outline his plans when Mr. Bush
makes his first presidential trip abroad later this month to Mexico.

Mr. Castaneda's visit came shortly after a similar trip to Washington by
Canada's foreign minister, John Manley, who engaged General Powell on the
challenges and opportunities created by the cross-border exchange of $1
billion a day in goods and 200 million visitors a year.

Mr. Bush hosts Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada on Feb. 5 as the first
foreign leader he will meet in office. Mr. Bush seems open to exploring a
triangular approach to the problems of the Americas with his two partners in
NAFTA. That would provide an early and positive sign to the world that
reports of Mr. Bush's unilateralist tendencies have been exaggerated.

The president should also use these opening meetings to show that the
mechanics of greater trade and immigration will not overshadow the social
and moral values that should be reflected in U.S. dealings with its closest
neighbors. If globalization begins at home, so does good foreign policy.