IN MEXICO, OBAMA SEEKS CURBS ON ARMS SALES

MEXICO CITY -- President Obama, vowing to confront drug cartels that
are "sowing chaos in our communities," called Thursday for the Senate
to ratify a long-stalled treaty aimed at curbing illegal arms
trafficking. But Mr. Obama also suggested that he would not press
lawmakers to revive an expired ban on assault weapons.

On the first day of a four-day swing through Latin America that will
also take him to Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. Obama declared "a new era of
cooperation and partnership" between the United States and Mexico. The
first American president since Bill Clinton to visit Mexico's capital,
Mr. Obama hoped to shore up the efforts of his Mexican counterpart,
President Felipe Calderon, to combat the rising tide of cross-border
drug violence.

But while the two pledged their "shared responsibility" in the drug
wars during a news conference here, they seemed to diverge on the
issue of the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Mr. Calderon
said nearly 90 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico could be traced
to the United States, adding that organized crime increased after the
ban expired.

Mr. Obama campaigned on a platform of renewing it, but he suggested
Thursday that reviving the ban was politically impossible because of
opposition from gun enthusiasts. "None of us are under any illusion
that reinstating that ban would be easy," Mr. Obama said, while
insisting he was "not backing off at all" from his conviction that
renewing the ban made sense.

Mr. Obama's meeting with Mr. Calderon touched on a range of issues,
including immigration policy, climate change and a dispute over
whether Mexican trucks should be allowed to deliver goods inside the
United States. But the overarching issue was drug violence.

The Obama administration had already pledged to send more agents to
patrol the border with Mexico and more helicopters to Mexico. But on
Thursday the president went a step further, announcing that he would
press the Senate to ratify the long-stalled inter-American arms
treaty, which the United States had a major hand in negotiating
through the Organization of American States.

The treaty, signed by President Clinton, stalled in the Senate, but
went into effect in 1998 after two dozen other nations ratified it.
The treaty seeks to crack down on illicit firearms by, among other
things, establishing a system for the import, export and transfer of
firearms, and by fostering cooperation among law enforcement agencies
investigating illegal trafficking.

"It makes good policy sense," said Peter DeShazo, a former senior
State Department official who has advocated ratifying the pact. "It's
very hard for the United States to call on other countries to
cooperate on controlling the flow of illegal arms if we haven't
ratified a major inter-American convention."

But it is unclear what type of reception the treaty will receive now
in Washington. Aides to Mr. Obama said he was working closely with
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, to get the treaty
ratified, but Mr. Reid issued a statement that offered no commitment
to bring it up for a vote.

On Capitol Hill, a senior Democratic official said that despite the
president's urging, it would be hard to move forward on the treaty
given the Senate's already crowded agenda, as well as a continuing
Democratic reluctance to engage in a politically charged debate over
guns. The National Rifle Association said Thursday that it would
"continue to vigorously oppose any international effort to restrict
the constitutional rights of law-abiding American gun owners."

Since taking office, Mr. Obama and his aides have been working
assiduously to carve out a Mexico policy that talks of "shared
responsibility" in combating the drug problem. On Wednesday, the Obama
administration announced stiff financial sanctions against members of
three more Mexican drug cartels, designating them "kingpins" under a
law that allows the American government to seize their assets.

In words that resounded on both sides of the border, Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Mexico City last month that
America's "insatiable demand" for illegal drugs fueled the trade and
that America's "inability" to stop weapons from being smuggled south
fed the violence. It is a marked shift in tone from previous
administrations, and Mr. Obama used his visit here to reiterate the
sentiment.

"I will not pretend that this is Mexico's responsibility alone," he
said. "The demand for these drugs inside the United States is keeping
these cartels in business."

As if to underscore his point, the Mexican authorities reported
Thursday that at least 15 drug cartel gunmen had been killed in a gun
battle with army troops. One soldier was also reported killed in the
clash, which took place in San Miguel Totolapan, about 125 miles
southwest of Mexico City.

"For the last 30 years the United States has come down with the big
sticks of eradication and helicopters, and the elephant in the room of
our own consumption, and the tough proliferation of arms, were just
never addressed," said Julia E. Sweig, director of the Latin America
program at the Council on Foreign Relations. "I think just beginning
to talk about those things is going to buy him a lot of space down
there."

Mr. Obama comes here fresh from a much-publicized swing through Europe
that put him squarely on the world stage. The Latin America trip may
not have as high a profile. But the president has made repairing
relations with world leaders a signature of his foreign policy, and
the visit is intended to give him a chance to do that in a region with
which he is less familiar.

Mr. Obama was scheduled to leave Friday morning for Port of Spain,
Trinidad, to attend a gathering of leaders of Western Hemisphere nations.

Cuba is likely to be high on the agenda there. The White House
announced this week that Mr. Obama was lifting longstanding
restrictions on travel and remittances to the island, but some Latin
American leaders would like to see the United States lift its trade
embargo with Cuba.

Mr. Obama said Thursday that he had made "a good faith effort" to
improve relations and was now looking for Cuba to demonstrate its
willingness to make democratic reforms. "A relationship that has been
frozen for 50 years," he said, "is not going to thaw overnight."