MERIDA, Mexico (By Chris Hawley, Arizona Republic) March 14, 2007 — Mexican President Felipe Calderón showed a harder edge than his predecessor Tuesday, blasting U.S. construction of border walls and demanding Americans shoulder some of the blame for drug-trafficking as he kicked off a two-day summit with President Bush.

In his welcoming remarks, Mexico's conservative new leader touted the military raids he has launched against drug-related violence and challenged the United States to kick its drug addictions.

"My government has done its part, reclaiming the streets and plazas from the claws of crime and drugs," Calderón said.

 

"But to be successful in this fight we need the collaboration and the active participation of our neighbor, because until the demand for drugs is reduced in your territory, it will be very difficult to reduce the supply in ours," he said.

As the two leaders met, anti-Bush protesters clashed with police outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, hundreds of miles away. Protesters in Merida hurled chunks of concrete over the metal riot barriers around Bush's hotel.

The summit, which capped a five-nation tour of Latin America for Bush, had a much different tone than six years ago, when Bush traveled to Mexico to meet Calderón's predecessor, Vicente Fox.

Fox and Bush were old acquaintances who shared the same folksy, country-boy image. They strolled Fox's ranch in cowboy boots, petted his horse and talked crops during their first summit in 2001. Bush even visited Fox's mother.

Calderón, meanwhile, is an economist and a career politician. He was all business as he opened the summit at a 17th-century plantation house on the Yucatan Peninsula.

With his first words, he reminded Bush that the U.S. president had once promised a special relationship with Mexico.

"It's time to reclaim the spirit of those words and channel our relationship toward a path to mutual prosperity," Calderón said.

It was, analysts said, a possible sign of a new, shrewder relationship with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks put Mexico on a back burner.

"Fox's government put the relationship with the United States in personal terms, in terms of his friendship with Bush," said César Villanueva, a professor of global relations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "Fox never mastered realpolitik."

Now, for the first time in years, Mexico offers something the United States wants: a conservative ally to counter the growing influence of Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez. Calderón wants a bigger role in world affairs and has signaled he's willing to deal.

"Your visit offers us the opportunity to join forces so that Mexico and the United States can push together, as equals, a future of development and welfare in our region," he told Bush on Tuesday.

Bush, for his part, emphasized the two countries' devotion to democratic freedoms and said they could build "a safer, more democratic and more prosperous hemisphere."

"The choice we've made for each other is a choice for freedom, and that choice has made us friends," Bush said.

Calderón sharply criticized the construction of new border walls, saying the money would be better spent on foreign aid.

"A kilometer of highway in Michoacan or Zacatecas (states) would help more to stop migration than 10 kilometers of wall in Texas or Arizona," he said.

The leaders also discussed trade, border security and Bush's proposals to reform U.S. immigration laws. Then they toured Uxmal, an ancient Mayan city.

In Mexico City, hundreds of protesters marched to the U.S. Embassy and attacked riot police with rocks and clubs. Police responded with tear gas and nightsticks. Several people were injured.

Protesters also marched near Bush's hotel in Merida for a second night. Masked youths pounded on the metal riot barriers and threw chunks of concrete ripped from street curbs. One journalist was hit with a rock and taken to a hospital. Protesters later spray-painted city hall and broke windows downtown.

Bush, dining with Calderón, and was not in the hotel.

The two leaders planned to hold a joint news conference today before Bush departs.

Since taking office on Dec. 1, Calderón has launched huge raids aimed at taming drug-related violence. He has dispatched 30,000 troops to patrol the streets and has extradited several major drug suspects to the United States.

Experts doubt the raids will have a long-lasting effect, but they have given Calderón the diplomatic high ground. In an interview with the Associated Press over the weekend, Calderón said the United States needed to stop addressing its drug-addiction problem with "symbolic gestures."