MEXICAN PRESIDENT-ELECT WARMLY GREETED IN WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 -- Vicente Fox, the next president of Mexico -- a land
he envisions far closer to the United States, with borders no more than
lines on a map -- started laying out his vision to the present and future
leaders of the United States today. Mr. Fox, who takes office on Dec. 1,
met with President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore; he is to meet Gov.
George W. Bush in Texas on Friday. At the White House, the State Department
and the vice president's residence, he was congratulated for winning the
fairest election in Mexican history on July 2, defeating the ruling party
and ending its seven decades of often authoritarian and corrupt government.

President Clinton called the Mexican leader's victory "a truly historic
affirmation of genuine democracy." A measure of good will -- rare among
many of the two men's predecessors -- appeared to flow between Mr. Clinton
and Mr. Fox.

"You're walking on clouds," President Clinton told Mr. Fox during their
private meeting, according to aides. The thorniest issues dividing the two
nations -- drugs, migration, trade disputes -- were discussed, but not
debated, aides on both sides said.

Mr. Fox's vision of a future in which people and their possessions can move
far more freely across the 2,000-mile border is not shared by official
Washington, or by either presidential contender. That frontier has become a
battle front, as the United States fights its long and often unsuccessful
war against drug traffickers and illegal immigrants heading north.

Mr. Gore found the idea of open borders "clearly problematic," said his
national security adviser, Leon Fuerth, and Mr. Bush repeated today that he
thought "we ought to enforce our borders."

Mr. Clinton said much the same thing. "Obviously, we have borders and we
have laws that apply to them and we have to apply them, and so do the
Mexicans," he said. "But I think over the long run, our countries will
become more interdependent."

Mexico has become the United States' second-largest business partner
(Canada is No. 1, Japan No. 3). Trade between the two nations is expected
to exceed $240 billion this year. And Mr. Fox believes that a growing
economic integration will inexorably erode the border -- and the
development gap -- in coming years.

Mexico, he says, can develop in the next two or three decades from a client
trading with a superpower into a full-fledged partner, if it can answer
questions like those he posed today: "How can we narrow the gap on income
on both sides of the border? How can we in the long term equal the levels
of development between our countries so that we become real friends, real
partners and real neighbors?"

If the economy of Mexico grows stronger, if living standards and wages rise
- -- per-capita income is barely $5,000 a year, and 40 million Mexicans are
poor by any standard -- then, Mr. Fox argues, there will be far less
incentive for illegal immigration, which has risen to perhaps 150,000 cases
a year.

"How can we build up the opportunities in Mexico so that our kids, 12- ,
14-year-olds, don't have to leave home, don't have to move to the United
States looking for opportunities?" he asked. Not by beefing up border
patrols, he said, but building up Mexico.

"As long as we can have in each rural community in Mexico a school of high
level," Mr. Fox said, "and we can have a job in those communities, then we
will not have migration as we are having now."

Aides said Mr. Clinton expressed concern that the 1994 North American Free
Trade Agreement, or Nafta, which reduced cross-border trade barriers
dividing the United States, Mexico and Canada, had not raised real wages in
Mexico. And they said that Mr. Gore had asked Mr. Fox's help in building
support for free trade among environmental and labor groups, which have
often viewed Nafta as a malevolent force.

Mr. Gore and Mr. Fox spent an hour talking, Mr. Fuerth said, touching on
trade, the environment, human rights, democracy and two interwoven problems
confronting Mexico: the international traffic that fills the enormous
demand for drugs in the United States, and the official corruption that
smooths the flow of the drugs.

Mr. Fox pledged to "attack corruption profoundly within government,"
beginning with Mexico's police and security agencies.