In Mexico, Obama Seeks Curbs on Arms Sales

In Mexico, Obama Seeks Curbs on Arms Sales

By SHERYL *** STOLBERG
Published: April 16, 2009

MEXICO CITY — President Obama, vowing to confront drug cartels that are “sowing chaos in our communities,” called Thursday for the Senate to ratify a long-stalled treaty aimed at curbing illegal arms trafficking. But Mr. Obama also suggested that he would not press lawmakers to revive an expired ban on assault weapons.

On the first day of a four-day swing through Latin America that will also take him to Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. Obama declared “a new era of cooperation and partnership” between the United States and Mexico. The first American president since Bill Clinton to visit Mexico’s capital, Mr. Obama hoped to shore up the efforts of his Mexican counterpart, President Felipe Calderón, to combat the rising tide of cross-border drug violence.

But while the two pledged their “shared responsibility” in the drug wars during a news conference here, they seemed to diverge on the issue of the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Mr. Calderón said nearly 90 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico could be traced to the United States, adding that organized crime increased after the ban expired.

Mr. Obama campaigned on a platform of renewing it, but he suggested Thursday that reviving the ban was politically impossible because of opposition from gun enthusiasts. “None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy,” Mr. Obama said, while insisting he was “not backing off at all” from his conviction that renewing the ban made sense.

Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Calderón touched on a range of issues, including immigration policy, climate change and a dispute over whether Mexican trucks should be allowed to deliver goods inside the United States. But the overarching issue was drug violence.

The Obama administration had already pledged to send more agents to patrol the border with Mexico and more helicopters to Mexico. But on Thursday the president went a step further, announcing that he would press the Senate to ratify the long-stalled inter-American arms treaty, which the United States had a major hand in negotiating through the Organization of American States.

The treaty, signed by President Clinton, stalled in the Senate, but went into effect in 1998 after two dozen other nations ratified it. The treaty seeks to crack down on illicit firearms by, among other things, establishing a system for the import, export and transfer of firearms, and by fostering cooperation among law enforcement agencies investigating illegal trafficking.

“It makes good policy sense,” said Peter DeShazo, a former senior State Department official who has advocated ratifying the pact. “It’s very hard for the United States to call on other countries to cooperate on controlling the flow of illegal arms if we haven’t ratified a major inter-American convention.”

But it is unclear what type of reception the treaty will receive now in Washington. Aides to Mr. Obama said he was working closely with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, to get the treaty ratified, but Mr. Reid issued a statement that offered no commitment to bring it up for a vote.

On Capitol Hill, a senior Democratic official said that despite the president’s urging, it would be hard to move forward on the treaty given the Senate’s already crowded agenda, as well as a continuing Democratic reluctance to engage in a politically charged debate over guns. The National Rifle Association said Thursday that it would “continue to vigorously oppose any international effort to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding American gun owners.”

Since taking office, Mr. Obama and his aides have been working assiduously to carve out a Mexico policy that talks of “shared responsibility” in combating the drug problem. On Wednesday, the Obama administration announced stiff financial sanctions against members of three more Mexican drug cartels, designating them “kingpins” under a law that allows the American government to seize their assets.

In words that resounded on both sides of the border, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Mexico City last month that America’s “insatiable demand” for illegal drugs fueled the trade and that America’s “inability” to stop weapons from being smuggled south fed the violence. It is a marked shift in tone from previous administrations, and Mr. Obama used his visit here to reiterate the sentiment.

“I will not pretend that this is Mexico’s responsibility alone,” he said. “The demand for these drugs inside the United States is keeping these cartels in business.”

As if to underscore his point, the Mexican authorities reported Thursday that at least 15 drug cartel gunmen had been killed in a gun battle with army troops. One soldier was also reported killed in the clash, which took place in San Miguel Totolapan, about 125 miles southwest of Mexico City.

“For the last 30 years the United States has come down with the big sticks of eradication and helicopters, and the elephant in the room of our own consumption, and the tough proliferation of arms, were just never addressed,” said Julia E. Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think just beginning to talk about those things is going to buy him a lot of space down there.”

Mr. Obama comes here fresh from a much-publicized swing through Europe that put him squarely on the world stage. The Latin America trip may not have as high a profile. But the president has made repairing relations with world leaders a signature of his foreign policy, and the visit is intended to give him a chance to do that in a region with which he is less familiar.

Mr. Obama was scheduled to leave Friday morning for Port of Spain, Trinidad, to attend a gathering of leaders of Western Hemisphere nations.

Cuba is likely to be high on the agenda there. The White House announced this week that Mr. Obama was lifting longstanding restrictions on travel and remittances to the island, but some Latin American leaders would like to see the United States lift its trade embargo with Cuba.

Mr. Obama said Thursday that he had made “a good faith effort” to improve relations and was now looking for Cuba to demonstrate its willingness to make democratic reforms. “A relationship that has been frozen for 50 years,” he said, ‘’is not going to thaw overnight.”

Larry Rohter contributed reporting.