10:05 A.M. EDT
MR. PRINCE: Good morning and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. This morning, we are pleased to present a briefing on the trilateral meeting, which will take place tomorrow with President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin.
This briefing is on background and the attribution should be to Senior Administration Officials. I would also like to ask that you refrain from taking any photos because it is a backgrounder. In the middle, we have [Senior Administration Official], next to him [Senior Administration Official], and next to me we have, [Senior Administration Official],, and on the far end, [Senior Administration Official].
The first Senior Administration Official will start with his statement and then we'll go to Q&A.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. I'll give a brief statement and then we'll take questions from you.
President Bush will host Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin for a trilateral meeting on Wednesday, March 23rd, at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. The meeting will consist of a working session at Baylor University and then followed by a lunch, hosted by the President at his ranch in Crawford.
The primary purpose for the meeting is for the three leaders to discuss new avenues for cooperation to enhance our common security and prosperity. This is a theme that leaders have discussed and explored in previous conversations, as late as December of last year when the President went up to Canada and met with Prime Minister Martin.
Among the issues that the leaders will discuss are ways to secure North America from external threats and preventing and responding to attacks within the North American area. They'll look at ensuring that legitimate travelers and cargo can move efficiently across shared borders. They'll look at ways to improve productivity and reduce the cost of trade through regulatory cooperation and information-sharing.
Currently, different standards, regulations and business practices increase the cost of doing business on a continental scale, restraining the productivity growth and impairing competitiveness of the North America region and the leaders will look at ways to address those challenges in a cooperative manner. These are areas in which the three countries have worked effectively over the years on a case-by-case basis. And so, the purpose of the meeting will be for the leaders to discuss and explore ways for the U.S., Canada and Mexico to speed the development and implementation of efforts to enhance the security and promote the prosperity of all the peoples of the three countries. They'll be looking to do this through cooperative approaches aimed at developing a common approach to advancing the goals of security and prosperity.
Thank you.
MR. PRINCE: Okay, thank you. Let's go ahead to Q&A. Questions?
Yes, right here. Please wait for the microphone and, as always, state your name and your media organization.
QUESTION: Thank you. Ruben Barrera with the Mexican News Agency, Notimex.
A couple of days ago, the White House said that the main issues of this meeting will be, I think, border security and trade. Nevertheless, there have been some reports in the Mexican press about a bilateral meeting between President Bush and President Fox, and according to those reports, the main issue of that bilateral meeting will be immigration.
[Senior Administration Official], you can clarify those reports? I mean, if there is going to be a bilateral meeting between President Fox and Bush and if that is going to take place, will immigration be the main issue of those discussions?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This will be a trilateral meeting primarily, but as it always happens in these meetings there will be an opportunity for all three leaders to discuss bilateral issues. All three leaders will have issues that I'm sure they will want to raise at one point or another in the discussions, and we fully anticipate that on the Mexican side migration will be raised by President Fox.
This is a discussion that President Fox and President Bush have had on many occasions. It's an ongoing discussion, especially related to the President's temporary worker program, so we assume that within the context of the trilateral meeting there will be an opportunity to discuss these issues.
QUESTION: Would you clarify? I mean, just for the first (inaudible). I mean, if there is going to be a bilateral meeting or not formally?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This is a trilateral meeting. There are no formal bilateral meetings. It's a trilateral meeting, both at Baylor and then the lunch at the ranch in Crawford. As I noted, as in all of these events, there's always a space available for discussing bilateral issues.
MR. PRINCE: Right there in the middle please. Other side, Tim.
QUESTION: It's Tim Harper from the Toronto Star.
When we discuss what you refer to as common border security, I'd like your views regarding a report that was released last week. It was a tripartite release, a report -- Governor Weld was the U.S. representative and it essentially called for a continental security perimeter. Is this an idea that the White House, the President, is prepared to put on the table again?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We haven't looked at the report in detail, but there have been a number of groups -- including the Council on Foreign Relations group, that I think you're referring to -- that have looked at ways for the three countries to explore deepening their cooperation through advancing the goals of both security and prosperity. And I think the Council on Foreign Relations report is probably a good contribution to that effort, but we haven't looked at it carefully, so I can't comment on to what degree what we're doing corresponds with anything that they may have issued in their report.
But, clearly, it's an important issue. A lot of people have looked at. We've been looking at it consistently for the past four years as ways to deepen our cooperation and we've done it on a case-by-case basis, for example, in terms of issues to protect the homeland. My colleague can talk about it better than I can, but what we've done on Smart Borders and other initiatives aimed with a broader goal of bringing the three countries together to work on areas of common interest.
And I think that part of the purpose of the meeting, or the primary purpose of the meeting that’s coming up will be to see if there's a way to look at these issues in a more comprehensive manner so that we can work on those complementary objectives of security and prosperity in an effective way.
QUESTION: Just so that I can clarify, would it be accurate to refer to it as security -- sorry. Is it accurate to refer to it as a security perimeter or a continental security perimeter?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the leaders still have not yet gotten together in terms of talking about exactly what they intend to do moving forward. So I think it's premature to characterize what they'll come up with at their meeting in one set of words or another. So I'll let them speak for themselves as to how they want to describe what their objectives will be.
[Senior Administration Official], I don't know if you want to add anything to that.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think you have accurately portrayed the position.
MR. PRINCE: Yes, right here please.
QUESTION: Alexandre Sirois, Montreal's La Presse.
It's going to be the first meeting since -- between Mr. Martin and President Bush -- since the Canadian Government announced that Canada would not take part, would not participate in missile defense. Do you think, well, that this setback is going to have an impact on the tone or on the results of this meeting in general?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The President and the Prime Minister had an opportunity to speak by phone on this issue and the President made it clear that he understood Prime Minister Martin's decision and respected the decision made by the Canadian Government, at the same time recognizing that Canada and the United States continue to have a very active security cooperation agreement and that the Prime Minister's budget request for an increase in defense spending, the million dollar donation to the NATO trust fund, the commitment to continue to work with NATO trainers on Iraq training issues and Canada's participation in Afghanistan -- was a very, very strong statement of Canadian and U.S. cooperation, and the purpose of this meeting actually is just to look forward.
As my colleague has noted, this is really about determining how we can deepen and enhance our cooperation to improve our security and protect our prosperity. So I think all three leaders are going to be looking at the horizon on this one.
QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up. People in Canada are starting to talk about an expansion of NORAD. What does the Administration think about that?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, as you know, we're currently in talks with the Government of Canada, as we look toward renewal of the NORAD agreement in 2006, and we're looking at a variety of aspects of that agreement and I wouldn't want to get too far in front of that negotiation process. But, naturally, as you approach a renewal point, you evaluate the agreement and determine how, if it's necessary, to adjust it in any fashion.
MR. PRINCE: Yeah. Let's come up to the front row again, please.
QUESTION: Thank you. Ruben Barrera.
Going back to the border issue, I wonder if the discussions to enhance the border security, at least between Mexico and U.S., are going to, you know, involve any talk about, you know, how both countries can better, you know, manage the border -- I don't know -- if there are going to be some talks about what seems to be a proposal from the U.S. Congress to deploy some type of military elements along the border in order to enhance the border security.
And I don't know, if you can give us a little, you know, examples about what the elements are, at least in the area of public security, that President Fox and Bush are going to discuss.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Basically, we'll just say that Mexico has been a good partner on this point with us on the border security and we look forward to addressing further a broad range of border security efforts with Mexico and our initial discussions have been very good.
MR. PRINCE: Yes, right here. Over there on that side.
QUESTION: Thank you. Masakatsu Ota with Japanese Kyodo News.
I want to follow up on the previous question about the border security issues. Is there any discussion on the, you know, in terms of the strengths on the border in order to prevent the nonproliferation agenda? I mean, you know, porous border between Mexico and the U.S. might be a very -- you know, it's a dangerous point for nonproliferation -- I mean, nuclear proliferation or whatever WMD proliferation. This issue might be coming up tomorrow during tomorrow meeting? That's my question. Thank you.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We expect the leaders to talk about a full range of issues related to protecting the common homeland, the U.S., Mexican and Canadian homeland, and it deals with, as I said at the outset, external threats as well as responding to threats from within the region. I think all three of our countries share a common interest to address the problems and the challenges that have come about, whether it's from proliferation of weapons or terrorist threats or other types of threats that our governments have been particularly focused on since 9/11.
And so there's a wide range of issues that I know our governments have been in discussions on, certainly since 9/11 and in previous meetings between the leaders, including at international summits, at APEC and the Summit of the Americas and G-8 and elsewhere. And so the goal will be to use this meeting as a way to talk in a kind of comprehensive fashion of what we can do to better work together to address the full range of challenges that we have. We've just given you some of the topics of discussion and I think what you'll hear coming out of the meetings on the 23rd is a product of what will be, I expect, a more comprehensive discussion by the leaders and a more comprehensive vision of going forward, of how we can do a better job of addressing all sorts of threats, including the ones you characterize.
MR. PRINCE: Yes, Nestor.
QUESTION: Nestor Ikeda, an Associated Press reporter for Latin America.
I have a very simple question. Can we expect a formal declaration after the meeting, kind of a joint communiqué or something like that from the three presidents?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I think what will happen is they'll have two working sessions, and at which point they'll do a press availability at which I expect that they will issue a joint communiqué. So there will be a statement that will come out at that point. The substance of it, obviously, we'll have to see what the leaders come up with and what the product of their discussions happens to be, but I expect that there will be a press availability and a joint statement that they'll issue after their two working sessions in the morning.
MR. PRINCE: Okay. If you joined us late, I'd just like to remind you this was a background briefing. The attribution is to “senior administration officials.” Last call? Thank you very much.
