Patrick Smyth spoke to Mexico's President Vicente Fox ahead of his first state visit to Dublin today to strengthen the EU-Mexico trade agreement
President Vicente Fox arrives today for the first official visit to Ireland by a Mexican head of state.
For Mr Fox, however, the visit is the renewal of family connections to a country "I like a lot . . . I love," he says.
Two of his sons spent a year at a Dublin school for overseas students learning English run by the deeply conservative Legionaries of Christ order, while other members of the family have studied here for shorter periods. He recalls his father talking "way back" about his great-grandfather's emigration to Cincinnati from Ireland.
Like many Mexicans, however, he is not unduly preoccupied by his ancestry and a bit vague about the connection. There is even a suggestion that family records may show that they originally emigrated from Strasbourg where they were named Fuchs.
The family first moved to Mexico from Cincinnati in 1913 and then returned to settle finally in Mexico in 1920.
In the mid-90s Mr Fox visited Dublin as Governor of the state of Guanajuato, when he was entertained by Mr Denis Brosnan of the Kerry Group which has a large plant in the state.
He sees a natural empathy between Ireland and Mexico whose Catholicism and distinct but similar historic struggles to come out from under the shadow of a large and dominating neighbour has marked them profoundly.
Acknowledging the legendary role of the San Patricios, the brigade of Irish soldiers which fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American war of 1846-48, Mr Fox insists that both countries can also share much from each other's recent economic stories of growth.
Mexico is now the ninth-largest economy in the world, the seventh in terms of trading volume, he says, arguing that each country can provide bridges for the other to the markets of Latin America and the EU respectively.
His visit is aimed primarily at strengthening the bilateral trade relationship which has been boosted by the two-year-old EU-Mexico trade agreement which has opened up huge opportunities. Mexico until recently sent 90 per
cent of its exports into the North American Free Trade Association, NAFTA, and now hopes to reach out to other markets.
Ireland last year sold $550 million in goods to Mexico while it exported $243 million to Ireland
(this is probably substantially undertstated as much of the trade comes through Amsterdam or Rotterdam
where it is registered).
The charismatic Mr Fox, the former head of Coca-Cola in Mexico and a former rancher who campaigned in his trademark cowboy hat and boots, represents an important break with his country's traditional politics. Elected to the presidency for the centre-right National Action Party (PAN) in 2000, he had broken the 71-year-old stranglehold
on politics of the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI), a Fianna Fáil-like populist product of the country's own revolution.
"The change is done," he says. Mexico is now "a plural system, athoroughly democratic system. We enjoy all the freedoms." However, he acknowledges there is much to do to tackle endemic poverty, improve education and security and tackle corruption.
He has sought to do a deal with the insurgent Zapatistas in Chiapas, although has been somewhat stymied by congress, but both he and the PAN party remain committed to multiculturalism in dealing with the indigenous peoples.
Mr Fox retains strong popular support – recently polling a 79 per cent approval rating – although many of his liberal economic policies face are bitterly opposed. He is strongly internationalist in outlook
and wants to see Mexico "very actively participating in building a better world".
He strongly supports such developments as the new International Criminal Court for war crimes and he is an advocate of turning regional economic co-operation, like that through NAFTA, into more political co-operation. Does the experience of the EU provide a model? "I see a future very much like the EU though adapted to our circumstances," Mr
Fox says.
Like Ireland, Mexico is occupying a seat on the UN Security Council. It too faced pressures on Iraq to reconcile the need to keep its neighbour, the US, sweet while insisting on the need for the Security Council to sanction any military action. Like Ireland, Mexico held out for a resolution which would not contain an automatic
trigger for action .
"We wanted one resolution accepted by all the members of the Security Council," insisting that his country's stance "doesn't have to affect relations with the US". Mexican diplomats were very active in brokering a deal on the resolution.
His early warm relationship with the Texas governor and then President Bush was legendary. The administration had been delighted to see the back, temporarily at least, of the PRI and Mr Fox's free market credentials had been enthusiastically noted.
Combined with a determination by the Republicans to make inroads into the Hispanic community, particularly its 10-million Mexicans, it led to what Mexico hoped was the start of a breakthrough on the vexed issue of the legal status
of the three to four million undocumented Mexicans in the US.
Then came September 11th and the issue was put on hold as the US moved to strengthen border controls
and clamp down on illegals.
Was he disappointed? "I'm never disappointed. I'm always optimistic." He always looks for what can be achieved. Yes, there has been a delay "because the US is concentrating on terrorism" but he is adamant it will return to the agenda. Mr Fox is a man who takes the long view.