MEXICO SETBACK FOR INJURED CLINTON
By Nancy Dunne in Washington and Leslie Crawford in Mexico City
Copyright (c) 1997, The Financial Times Limited

President Bill Clinton's ambitious Latin American strategy
has suffered a setback with the decision to postpone his
first state visit to Mexico and delay trips to Argentina,
Brazil and Venezuela until later in the year.

The Mexican foreign ministry said yesterday the visit to
Mexico, scheduled to have begun on April 11, had been put
back until May 6, so the president would have more time to
recover from his knee injury.

It would also allow the healing of relations between the
two countries that have been severely strained by the
annual US certification of countries deemed to be
cooperating in the war against drug trafficking.
Mexico's recertification this year, despite a series of
drug corruption scandals, caused outrage among US
legislators, while the government in Mexico condemned the
certification process as an unwarranted interference in
Mexico's internal affairs.

Mr Clinton's plans to visit Argentina and Brazil in May
will also be put back until October 1997, scuppering White
House plans to build support for an Americaswide free
trade agreement.

When Mr Clinton's Latin American strategy was announced
early this year, the aim was to build support for free
trade in the Americas in the new Congress, leading to swift
passage of "fast track" authority to negotiate trade deals.

However, the White House has been buffeted by the
campaign finance scandal and attacks on its trade policy.
Ms Charlene Barshefsky has only just won confirmation as US
trade representative, and has yet to devise a proposal on
"fasttrack" acceptable to both Republicans and Democrats.
* Mexico's foreign ministry yesterday said it had blocked
the donation of European Union funds to an election
monitoring group in Mexico because it had not been
previously consulted on the matter.

"We were not informed of this project, and the framework
of Mexico's cooperation agreement with the European Union
requires that all EUfunded projects be approved by a
bilateral committee," Mr Javier Trevino, Mexico's
undersecretary for international cooperation, said. Mr
Trevino admitted the foreign ministry's stance marked a
departure from previous government policy, which once
welcomed foreign funding of poll monitoring groups.

The Mexican veto against a $ 400,000 grant to the
Mexican Academy of Human Rights has led to protests from
the institute in charge of organising elections in Mexico
and concern among European MPs.