IF PRESIDENT Clinton has not succeeded in improving the prickly US Mexico relationship during his three day visit to Mexico, it will not be for want of trying very hard. On every public appearance he strove to remind Mexicans that the relationship is now based on mutual respect and cooperation not on old time "Yankee imperialism".
There were some street protests with the "Yankee go home" placards but these were easily eclipsed by such gestures as Mr Clinton honouring the memory of boy soldiers killed in the US Mexico war in 1847, and by meeting opposition politicians. This was the first time a US President met the political opposition - and during an election campaign to boot.
The main business of the visit - the first to the capital since President Carter's in 1979 - was to ease the tensions caused by US Congressional criticism of corruption in Mexico undermining the anti drugs campaign and by Mexican resentment at the new US immigration law.
On the drugs question, while 70 per cent of cocaine is coming into the US from Mexico, Mr Clinton frankly recognised that the problem is just as much on the US side where $50 billion is available each year for consumption. The Mexicans wanted to hear this from the President himself and they got it.
The alliance against drugs signed by the two presidents is a catalogue of intentions and the vexed question of the arming of US agents working in Mexico has been covered by a vague formula.
The immigration issue is actually a much bigger one for Mexicans as there are an estimated two million illegal Mexicans living in the US and now facing eventual deportation with all the disruption that entails. The joint declaration signed by Mr Clinton and President Zedillo promises protection for the "rights" of migrants but without any indication that the US will consider an amnesty for the "illegals".
Mr Clinton's hands are tied as the Republican controlled Congress is strongly anti immigrant and in no mood to make concessions towards illegals. Instead, there is a commitment to the "safe and orderly repatriation" of migrants. The US is also funding the construction of a new bridge over the Rio Grande to ease traffic congestion.
The speeches by the two presidents were full of praise for the NAFTA free trade agreement which has boosted trade between the US and Mexico by 60 per cent in three years. But left wing critics such as the PRD claim that the neoliberal, free trade approach is doing nothing to close the huge wealth gap for the Mexican poor. Mr Zedillo answered this criticism by blaming too much "government control over economic processes" in the past. The answer is economic growth through more liberalisation which will pay for the needed social policies, he said.
This is a debate which affects most other Latin American countries now pressing the US for access to its huge market through further free trade agreements.
Mr Clinton now goes on to Costa Rica and Barbados. Later this year he travels to Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.