WORLD LEADERS UNITE

Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair (left) meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 4. Mr Blair’s visit to Russia and meeting with the Russian president is part of the coalition-building process to identify those responsible for the attacks on the U.S. on September 11th.

President Fox Reaffirms Commitment to U.S.

PRESIDENT BUSH: It is my honor to welcome my friend back to the White House. It wasn’t all that long ago that we were standing out here for the opening ceremony of the first and only state dinner I’ve had since I’ve been the President. He came as a friend then, and he’s come back as a loyal friend to the United States.
September 11th really changed America. President Fox understood that right off the bat. One of the first calls I got was from Vicente Fox. He called expressing his deep condolences to the American people. He was very kind to me. He wished me well. President Fox understands that an attack on America affects Mexico in a significant way. After all, there are millions of Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals living in America; men and women who saw a land they love attacked; men and women who have united around a great cause of defending freedom.

In this country we don’t ask the question, what is your religion or where are you from. We ask the question, are you united to defend freedom. And there are millions of Mexican Americans who understand that call. So when the President said, we stand with you, he is not only saying, we stand with the United States government, he’s saying, we stand with millions of people living in our country, as well. President Fox and I had a great discussion about ways we can continue to cooperate. We need to cooperate on security matters along our border, which we are. We need to continue working on other agenda items that we have been working on, and we will.
Obviously, our nation is now focused on the incidents of September 11th. But I assured him our relationship will go forward, that we’ll work on the issues that we had discussed the last time we were here. I talked to my friend about our economy. It has been affected significantly by the actions of September

the 11th. But I assured him that we will take an aggressive role at the federal level to try to spur economic growth, which is very important, since we’ve got a significant amount of trade between our nations. In sum, I’m so glad he came back. It’s comforting to know that our friend to the south is going to be a friend in good times and in tough times.
So, Mr. President, welcome back. Thank you for coming.

PRESIDENT FOX: Thank you. And thank you, President, for the opportunity to be back here again; the opportunity to express very clearly, loudly, our sorrow, our solidarity with your government, with the American people, with the victims and all those who suffered under these attacks. But also, the opportunity to reaffirm our commitments.
We are a friend, we are neighbors, we are partners, and we want to make very clear that this means commitment all the way, and that we will keep our commitments.