Scenesetter for Ambassador Kirk

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MEXICO 000426 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR WHA/MEX/GOMEZ STATE PASS TO USTR FOR MELLE/MCCOY/SHIGETOMI STATE PASS TO JUSTICE FOR CCIPS/KOUAME AND OPDAT/TRUEBELL STATE PASS TO COMMERCE FOR ITA/MAC/ONAFTA/WORD STATE PASS TO ITA/MAC/IPR/WILSON COMMERCE PASS TO USPTO FOR RODRIGUEZ/BERDUT/MORALES E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON KIPR MX ETRD PREL EINT ENRG BTIO SUBJECT: Scenesetter for Ambassador Kirk ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Your visit comes at a crucial moment in our efforts to deepen our bilateral relationship with Mexico, our third largest trading partner after Canada and China. As we institutionalize our security agenda we will also need to give more attention to the economic and social agendas in a country whose economic and social well-being affects ours directly. The United States' global competitiveness depends increasingly on a more competitive Mexico. Efforts to strengthen our mutually beneficial competitiveness in 2010 will focus on spurring innovation, building a modern 21st century border, encouraging the requisite regulations and infrastructure, and supporting a sustainable energy and environment agenda. All these are top priorities for the Calderon administration and offer huge potential for future U.S. investment and economic development. Mexico's and our economic recovery go hand in hand, and U.S. export-led successes depend increasingly on partnering with Mexico's lower-cost manufacturing capability. The top issues on the Mexican agenda will be the long-standing trucking dispute and other trade irritants, including Mexican tuna and shrimp exports to the United States. President Calderon is personally devoted to the issue of climate change and renewable energy, opening the possibility for trade and investment opportunities that benefit both countries. End Summary. Political Context -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Present Calderon enters the last three years of his six-year term facing a complicated political and economic environment. His PAN party emerged seriously weakened from a dramatic 2009 mid-term election in which the opposition (PRI) gained control of the Mexican Congress. His popularity numbers have dropped 10-points since the beginning of last year, yet they still hover solidly over 50 percent. He is by no means a lame duck. Still, the opposition PRI party is in the ascendancy, cautiously managing its illusory unity in an effort to dominate the ten gubernatorial contests that are up in the coming year, and to avoid any missteps that could jeopardize its front-runner status in the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections. In addition, the public's deepening economic worries have begun to counterbalance their concern about security. Economic Context -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Following the 2009 electoral setback, Calderon made promoting jobs and eradicating poverty his top two priorities for 2010, sharing the agenda with security issues that have become acutely sensitive in the past weeks due to the persisting violence in Ciudad Juarez. It is important that Calderon succeed in making real progress on the economy and security in the last three years of his term. The economic and security agendas are time-sensitive and volatile, and the more momentum that can be achieved now, the greater the prospect for continuity into a new administration. However, the complexities of pushing viable economic reforms through an opposition Congress complicate advancing such an agenda. If Calderon is unable to strengthen Mexico's competitiveness in order to promote jobs and eradicate poverty, the United States will also feel the impact through immigration pressures and greater volatility in high-violence cities that have been the battleground for narco-traffickers. A stable and growing Mexico is in both our security and economic interests. MEXICO 00000426 002 OF 004 ¶4. (SBU) As with any mature trade relationship, the United States and Mexico have a number of trade-based issues, including cross-border trucking, tuna/dolphin labeling, country-of-origin labeling (COOL),the Buy American program, and the shrimp/turtle excluder devices (TEDs) issue (although not strictly a trade concern),that complicate further a complex bilateral agenda where Mexico has, in an unprecedented way, engaged the U.S. in its most sensitive security issues. The GOM does not see these trade disputes as discrete, but as a message on the relative lack of importance we place on achieving a dynamic economic relationship with Mexico that would be mutually beneficial in improving our ability to compete in today's global market. ¶5. (SBU) The trucking issue is the most important and symbolic of these issues. Internally, the GOM is under pressure from its trucking industry to expand retaliatory measures under NAFTA. It has become a daily struggle to get the GOM to defer a new round of retaliatory measures and to risk further damage to our partnership. We have succeeded this far, but it is only a matter of time before the GOM takes new actions. Ironically, this blockage of a major transit flow from Mexico to the United States is hurting our own exports to Mexico. For example, the retaliatory tariffs imposed almost a year ago have accounted for a 17 percent drop in the shipments of one of the United States' largest retailers to its Mexican operations. ¶6. (SBU) On tuna/dolphins, the challenge will be to break out of our litigious impasse with Mexico. The GOM is primed to hear the various non-litigious options you will present. They will be reluctant to drop our even pause their WTO case against us unless they are assured that these options lead to their desired outcome of access to the U.S. market for Mexican tuna. While the shrimp/TEDs issue has not been on USTR's agenda, you should expect the Mexicans to raise it. Decertification of Mexican shrimp exports could result in a $300 - $400 million loss in exports, and the key actors you will see are deeply engaged on this issue. The Challenge: A Positive Economic Agenda -------------- -------------- ¶7. (SBU) The challenge, apart from resolving these trade irritants in a mutually satisfactory manner, is to find areas where we can move forward together. We need to create a positive economic partnership with Mexico beyond trade that goes to the heart of improving Mexico's competitiveness, which is key to the rationale for integrating the U.S. and Mexican economies and thereby increasing the competitiveness of both countries in global markets. We have identified a few opportunities in which USTR plays a vital role. Regulatory Reform -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Mexico has been desirous of moving quickly to make our regulations more compatible, often repeating that regulatory cooperation is an essential component of making North America more MEXICO 00000426 003 OF 004 competitive. Our three governments have asked our regulatory agencies to provide updates of cooperative efforts in previously identified sectors ranging from organics to information technology, as well as highlight priorities in each of these sectors in which regulatory cooperation is feasible and achievable. ¶9. (SBU) We believe that in addition to these sectors, there is potential for regulatory cooperation that are as essential for the business community as for consumers. These include pharmaceutical testing, standards for medical devices, common certification for telecommunications equipment, and automobile emissions. You need not get into the detail of regulatory reform, but it would be helpful if you could affirm our commitment to engage intensively in this area and produce a concrete agenda for the North American Leaders Summit. Renewable Energy -------------- ¶10. (SBU) Advancing bilateral cooperation on renewable energy, energy efficiency and the environmental agenda has been a top priority for both President Obama and President Calderon since their first meeting January 2009. This agenda was formalized when the Bilateral Clean Energy and Climate Change Framework was announced during President Obama's April 2009 visit to Mexico. On January 25-26 a senior level working group met in Washington to discuss pragmatic steps to advance this collaboration. The working group agreed to establish a bilateral task force which will work to create a renewable energy market between Baja California and California. The task force will consider standards, transmission capacity, regulatory issues and financing. This pilot project could be able more broadly across the border, creating significant opportunities for US companies to export green technology to Mexico. The January 25-26 meeting also helped advance cooperation on the Framework Convention on Climate Change 16th Conference of the parties (COP-16) which Mexico is hosting in late 2010. ¶11. (SBU) You could also stress President Obama's persona commitment to advancing a joint agenda on climate change and renewable energy. You could stress the administration's commitment to use all available policy and financial tools, drawing on DOE, EPA, State, TDA, USAID, OPIC and EXIM to create a viable renewable energy market between both countries. This wider context will also help reinforce USTR's Trade Climate Initiative. CITEL MRA -------------- ¶12. (SBU) We have recently revived talks with the GOM over the implementation of the Organization of American States' Mutual Recognition Agreement for Conformity Assessment of Telecommunications Equipment (CITEL MRA). The CITEL MRA framework agreement, signed by 34 countries in 1999, goes into effect between two signatory countries upon an exchange of letters. To date, the only signatory country with which the U.S. has exchanged letters is Canada. Mexico is concerned that this MRA disadvantages an emerging market like Mexico, which produces little telecom equipment, and fears that in the face of U.S. competition CITEL MEXICO 00000426 004 OF 004 would leave the sector stillborn as well as harm Mexico's standards testing laboratories. However, Mexico will host a trilateral meeting in Mexico City on February 25-26, and we will use the CITEL MRA as a starting point to allay Mexico's concerns. IPR -------------- ¶13. (SBU) There is potential for enhanced unilateral enforcement efforts in Mexico, further bilateral cooperation and even multilateral coordination in the region in combating IPR violations. Mexico continues to suffer from widespread commercial IPR infringement that causes huge losses to Mexican, U.S., and third country IP right-holders. However, the GOM has significantly improved its IPR protection and enforcement efforts and intra-governmental coordination, and has enhanced the cooperation between government agencies and the industry. A September 2009 DOJ-sponsored training program for Mexican customs officials in Manzanillo led to the detention of nearly 500 tons of Chinese counterfeit goods at the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas within a matter of weeks thereafter. Participation by the General Commissioner of COFEPRIS (Mexico's FDA-equivalent) in a March 2009 APEC-sponsored anti-counterfeit pharmaceuticals symposium in Mexico City, and later in a July 2009 tour of the IPR Coordination Center in Washington, appears to have heightened GOM sensitivities and contributed to an enforcement action in which seven pharmacies in Cancun were closed for distributing counterfeit Cialis and other medicines. Border and Customs Facilitation -------------- ¶14. (SBU) We need to leverage the competitive advantage inherent in our shared border and extend the border to transit hubs throughout Mexico and the United States, as well as move our security and customs operations to these decentralized points. As long as border operations are limited to a geographic line between the United States and Mexico, we will be bound by physical space and infrastructure. If we create multiple customs points in cities like Monterrey and Guadalajara using pre-clearance and automation resources, we can expand processing capacity and accelerate transit. GPS technology will let us track trucks and trains to confirm that they do not get diverted and opened. Only by moving in this direction can we shatter the physical stranglehold on our borders that limits the legitimate movement of people and goods. ¶15. (SBU) We have begun a discussion of these border issues with Mexico under the bilateral Policy Coordination Group on security issues with Mexico chaired by John Brennan. You could affirm support for the work we are doing in this channel and note that Secretary Napolitano will be in Mexico on February 17 - 18. In the bilateral part of her agenda she will want to focus on the dual challenges of competitiveness and security as we seek to create a 21st century border adapted to global competitive challenges. PASCUAL