MONTERREY (voa) – President Bush has met with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts on the sidelines of a United Nations-sponsored summit on development aid in Monterrey, Mexico, to discuss key North American issues.
The White House says Mr. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien discussed border security, energy policy and trade. They particularly focused on the success of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the general need to expand trade throughout the hemisphere.
The United States, Mexico and Canada signed NAFTA in 1994. The treaty links the three nations’ economies.
A White House spokesman says the leaders also discussed expanding sources of energy such as natural gas among their three nations and efforts to improve border security without impeding the flow of commerce and legitimate travel.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bush is scheduled to address the summit Friday. He is expected to encourage his fellow leaders to embrace his newly proposed $10 billion foreign aid policy, which would benefit nations that implement political and economic reforms.
President Bush next travels to Peru on Saturday and El Salvador on Sunday before ending his Latin American tour.
Mr. Bush is to meet with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo and the leaders of Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador in Lima under extremely tight security. President Bush is to arrive in the Peruvian capital just three days after a deadly car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy, killing nine people.
President Toledo cut short his trip to the U.N. conference in Mexico on Thursday because of the attack. Authorities suspect Peru’s Maoist Shining Path rebels are behind the bombing.
