What Obama Can Achieve in Mexico

YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images(MEXICO CITY) -- President Barack Obama arrives in Mexico on Thursday afternoon for a 24-hour trip in which he is expected to meet with Mexico's president, Enrique Peña Nieto, to talk about trade, security and immigration.

The details of what both presidents will discuss have not been laid out to the public. Nor has it been explained why this meeting is important, other than to "reinforce" the relationship between both countries.

But here are some concrete issues that both presidents might end up talking about and why they need to be addressed.

Security
Mexico's president has tried to shift the focus of U.S.-Mexico talks away from security, and to the economy, arguing that the relationship between both countries must expand beyond drug war cooperation. The U.S. seems to be going along with this request based on statements made recently by Secretary of State John Kerry.

But there are changes in Mexico's security policies that directly affect the United States, such as a recent decision by the Mexican government to stop direct communication between Mexican law enforcement agencies and American agencies. From now on, all requests made by the U.S. for intelligence information must be routed through Mexico's Interior Ministry.

This new policy could hamper cooperation between U.S. officers who work for agencies like the DEA and the FBI, with their Mexican counterparts, according to sources consulted by the Los Angeles Times. It will also give Mexico's ministry of the interior more power to decide which sorts of sensitive information can be passed along to U.S. agents.

Obama and his advisers will probably have to ask some questions about how intelligence information will be shared from now on and seek some reassurances that information will still be made available to them. They may also want to ask Mexico what it wants to do with bi-national programs that have come under scrutiny from officials in Mexico's new government.. For example, there was a program through which U.S. agents help to conduct background checks on new Mexican police hires to make sure that they have no connection to drug trafficking groups.

Alex Sanchez, a security analyst at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, believes that intelligence sharing will be a significant issue during the private meetings that will be held on Thursday, even if it has been downplayed by both sides.

He said that intelligence sharing will become more relevant as Mexican cartels increase their presence in the U.S., and also as the U.S. explores new ways to secure the border with drones.

"I think the U.S. government wants to make sure that Peña Nieto is on the same page as Obama, that he wants to pursue the cartels as consistently and aggressively as [former Mexican President] Calderon did during his presidency," Sanchez said.

Trade and North American Integration
Some economists in the U.S. and Mexico have suggested that both countries should work together in order to compete against China's economic power.

This belief that Mexico and the U.S. should be partners and not actually competitors is supported by the fact that both countries already produce many goods together with companies in the U.S. sending raw materials to Mexico, for example, where they are assembled into different sorts of products, and sent back to this country.

James R. Jones, a former U.S. ambassador in Mexico, says that North America has the human capital and energy reserves that could make it into the most competitive region in the world.

At a recent panel at the Americas Society, a Washington D.C. think tank, he suggested that Obama and Peña Nieto try to come up with regulations that make it easier for companies on both sides of the border to work together and export their products to the rest of the world.

"We need to find ways to not diminish the security of the border, but still expand and enable the commercial movement of goods," Jones said.

Another issue that both presidents should take a look at is NAFTA's legacy, says, Raul Gutierrez, a Mexican industrialist who leads the steel products group Deacero.

At the same panel at the Americas Society, Gutierrez mentioned that since this free trade agreement was implemented in 1994, the real minimum wage has fallen in Mexico by 25 percent. Under NAFTA, the number of Mexicans living in poverty has increased by 11 million, and more than 2,000 small exporting companies have closed. Mexican exports meanwhile only contain 30 percent of national content, and exports that come out of the assembly plants along the border, known as Maquiladoras, only average 3 percent of national content.

Gutierrez said that things could've been worse for Mexico, if NAFTA had not been implemented. But he argued that the U.S. and Mexico must find ways to boost Mexico's ailing manufacturing sector in order to create jobs in the country and prosperous conditions that would stop people from entering organized crime networks.

"A strong Mexican economy is in the security interests of the U.S.," Gutierrez said. "The U.S. will do well to think of North American competitiveness and not just its own in confronting the challenges of China," Gutierrez added, arguing that a more prosperous Mexico would also be a good market for U.S. companies.

Immigration
Mexico's president has been rather silent on this issue, saying only that he "fully supports" Obama's push for immigration reform. Back in November when he visited Obama in Washington, Peña Nieto said that rather than making "demands" on the U.S. President and the U.S. Congress, on behalf of the six million undocumented Mexican immigrants who live in the U.S., he wants to "contribute," to Obama's solution.

Peña Nieto may believe that Obama is on the right track, with regards to immigration reform, and that any attempts by his government to get involved in U.S. politics would backfire, and delay Obama's plans.

Alex Sanchez from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, says that Peña Nieto's statements of support, which are likely to be repeated during this visit by Obama, are somewhat helpful. "It's symbolic, of course, and it won't make Republicans back Obama's plan. But it looks good for Obama to get some sort of backing from the country where most immigrants come from," he said.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Yemen's President Seeks Medical Treatment in the US

GAMAL NOMAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Obama administration is reluctantly allowing Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh to enter the United States sometime this week,  a U.S. official tells ABC News.

Saleh is expected to receive a U.S. visa on Saturday and will likely depart Yemen for neighboring Oman on Sunday, the official said. He is expected to arrive in the United States later in the week.

It is unclear how long Saleh would stay in the U.S., though the spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington tweeted this morning that Saleh had no plans to relocate permanently outside of Yemen or to seek political asylum in the U.S.

A spokesman for the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Saleh had applied for a U.S. visa weeks ago, citing a desire to seek medical treatment, but U.S. officials sat on it, trying to find somewhere else in the region that would accept him. They found no takers.

Saleh has repeatedly balked after pledging to step aside last year.

Ultimately the U.S. official said the Obama administration determined it was better to get President Saleh out of Yemen, where he is viewed as a destabilizing figure as the country attempts to transition from decades under his rule, and to deal with any blowback from allowing him onto U.S. soil.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Obama Reaches Out to Pakistani President to Secure Relationship

Photos.com/George Doyle/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- President Barack Obama reached out to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari Sunday morning in an effort to convey his condolences after two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed this past week along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

White House officials report that Obama set the record straight that the attack was not deliberate. He also highlighted that the United States was poised to launch a full investigation on the incident.

In an effort to secure the relationship between the U. S. and Pakistan, both parties confirmed they would stay in contact.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

President Obama to Make Remarks on Gadhafi Death

Joseph Sohm-Visions of America/Photodisc(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama is expected to make a statement from the White House at 2 p.m. ET on Thursday regarding the fate of Muommar Gadhafi.

The statement will be made from the Rose Garden.

After months on the run, the former Libyan dictator was found and shot by rebel fighters in his hometown of Sirte, according to Libya's new ruling body, the National Transitional Council. The White House and NATO have yet to confirm his death.

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Obama: Iran 'Will Pay a Price' for Assassination Plot

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) -- President Barack Obama said Thursday that Iran will "pay a price" through sanctions and international pressure for its recent hostile behavior including the alleged Iran-directed plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. in Washington, D.C.

Echoing previous statements by top U.S. officials, Obama said that when dealing with Iran, "We don't take any options off the table," but did not make any mention of possible military action in favor of pushing harsh economic sanctions and corralling international condemnation of Iran's alleged action.

Obama declined to comment on whether he believed the highest levels of the Iranian government were aware or involved in the alleged plot, but said even if the Iranian president or supreme leader did not have "detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday the DEA and FBI had disrupted a plot "conceived, sponsored and...directed from Iran" to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. in or outside a crowded Washington, D.C. restaurant which potentially would have been followed up by bombings of the Saudi Arabian and Israeli embassies. The U.S. said an Iranian-American, 56-year-old Manssor Arbabsiar of Corpus Christi, Texas, was working for elements of the Iranian government -- specifically Iran's elite military unit the Quds force -- when he attempted to hire hitmen from the feared Zetas Mexican drug cartel to carry out the hit, but Arbabsiar was unwittingly speaking to a DEA informant from the start.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday sanctions against five Iranians allegedly tied to the plot and additional sanctions Wednesday against an airline company allegedly linked to the Quds force. U.S. representatives began Wednesday meeting separately with members of the United Nations Security Council as part of the American government's effort to "unite world opinion" against Iran, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden.

A lawyer for Arbabsiar has not returned requests for comment, but the man's wife, Martha Guerrero, said he was wrongly accused.

Iranian officials have strongly rejected the U.S. accusations, calling them a "fabrication." The head of the Iranian mission to the United Nations penned a letter Tuesday to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressing "outrage" at the allegations.

The case, called Operation Red Coalition, began in May when Arbabsiar unwittingly approached a DEA informant seeking the help of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, according to counter-terrorism officials.

Officials said Arbabsiar is now cooperating with prosecutors and federal agents in New York, where the case has been transferred.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Japanese Government Nixed Idea of Obama Visiting, Apologizing for, Hiroshima

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- In September 2009, U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos cautioned the Obama administration that the Japanese government did not think it was a good idea for President Obama to visit Hiroshima to apologize for the U.S. having dropped an atomic bomb on that city, a secret cable published by Wikileaks revealed.

Roos wrote the cable after his August meeting with Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka, reporting to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the Japanese government felt “the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘non-starter.’ While a simple visit to Hiroshima without fanfare is sufficiently symbolic to convey the right message, it is premature to include such program in the November visit.”

The cable was first reported by the Japan Times. 

Following President Obama’s call earlier that year for a world free of nuclear weapons, anti-nuclear groups would speculate as to whether he would visit Hiroshima, the Japanese official said, but Yabunaka recommended that President Obama’s November 2009 visit be focused mostly in Tokyo.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” -- a 8,900-pound uranium bomb -- 31,000 feet above the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing up to 70,000 Japanese citizens immediately, with another 70,000 speculated to have died from injuries including exposure to radiation.

On Aug. 9, the US dropped a similar device on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki.

Truman on that day delivered a radio address in which he said, “I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb. Its production and its use were not lightly undertaken by this Government. But we knew that our enemies were on the search for it. We know now how close they were to finding it. And we knew the disaster which would come to this Nation, and to all peace-loving nations, to all civilization, if they had found it first. Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.”

“We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan’s power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us. It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.”

Six days later, Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers.

Three years later, President Harry S. Truman expressed misgivings about his decision to have dropped those bombs to Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission David Lilienthal, who recorded the conversation in his diaries, which were later published.

“I don’t think we ought to use this thing [the A-Bomb] unless we absolutely have to,” Truman told Lilienthal. “It is a terrible thing to order the use of something that, that is so terribly destructive, destructive beyond anything we have ever had. You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses.”

The September 2009 Roos cable also reported that Yabunaka urged continued close communication between the U.S. and Japanese governments, and that in his view the “Japanese public felt ‘betrayed’ by the Bush Administration’s decision to delist the DPRK” -- the government of North Korea -- “from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, seemingly without prior coordination with the Japanese government.”

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Pakistan Might Allow US Access to Osama Bin Laden's Wives

ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Pakistani government officials have since told their U.S. counterparts that they soon will get access to bin Laden's three widows, who are in custody in Islamabad, a U.S. official told ABC News Monday evening.

The White House had said earlier that Pakistan declined to provide access to the widows or to the material that Pakistani authorities seized after the raid on bin Laden's hideout. But that didn't mean, officials added, that access would never be granted, saying that they were working on gaining access.

"We're going to have those conversations, and we hope and expect to make progress," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today. "We think the relationship's important, the cooperation's important. We've had differences in the past and overcome them, and we think we can overcome them now."

Gaining access to bin Laden's compounds and his wives are among the United States' key demands to Pakistan, and officials say the denial is another disappointment from that nation. Local authorities also have in custody eight of bin Laden's children and five other children, according to a senior Pakistani military official.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani spoke publicly Monday about the raid for the first time since it took place, rejecting accusations that Pakistani officials aided bin Laden, who had been hiding in Pakistan for several years. He warned the United States not to carry out a similar secret mission again.

"Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force," Gilani said. "No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland."

In another indication of Pakistan's anger with its U.S. ally, Pakistani newspapers published the name of the CIA station chief in the region, usually a closely-guarded secret. The name was misspelled, but was phonetically accurate. It is the second time in recent months the CIA station chief has been unmasked, something that is seen as Pakistani retaliation for its treatment by the Obama administration.

The CIA is currently studying the trove of information seized at bin Laden's compound, which is enough information to fill the library of a small college, officials say. Among the mysteries they are hoping to uncover is what the Pakistani government knew and did not know.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio