By
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Waving and grinning from his car after meeting with President Vicente Fox, Sen. Jesse Helms appeared at home in a country he has long denounced.
Helms came to Mexico City on Monday for a three-day trip that includes a historic joint meeting with members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and its Mexican counterpart. Yesterday, the five U.S. senators met with Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda, who in the past had often criticized Helms. Before the meeting, the group laughed and posed happily for photographers.
The two sides appear to be putting aside their differences - or at least discussing them. The visit, Helms said, was a way to "help solidify the emerging friendship between our two governments."
For years, the North Carolina Republican has attacked Mexico, accusing its government of widespread corruption and lackluster drug-fighting efforts.
Helms, one of Cuba's most vocal opponents, has denounced Mexico's ties to the communist island. He also voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement and opposed a U.S. rescue of Mexico's economy during the 1995 peso crisis.
For his part, Castaneda once called the Helms-Burton law - designed to punish foreign companies investing in Cuba - an "absurd tragicomedy."
But things have changed in Mexico, and both sides appeared to be responding.
When Fox took office Dec. 1, he ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Although the new president has appealed to the left by sending an Indian rights bill to Congress and promising to restart stalled peace talks with the Zapatista rebels, the former Coca-Cola executive is also a devout Roman Catholic and a member of the conservative National Action Party.
His administration has been received favorably by many Republicans in the United States.
Mexico was President Bush's first foreign trip after taking office. He and Fox spent a day at the Mexican president's ranch, pledging closer cooperation against drug smuggling, energy shortages and immigration problems.
In January, a delegation of senators led by Texas Republican Phil Gramm proposed a guest-worker program to bring Mexican workers legally into the United States.
Helms has said today's meeting with Mexican legislators "will be, to the best of our knowledge, the first time in history that a committee of the U.S. Congress has held a joint meeting on foreign soil with a committee of another nation's congress or parliament."
Joining Helms were Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.; and John Ensign, R-Nev. They are expected to discuss immigration, drug smuggling and trade.
Fox has urged U.S. officials to allow more Mexican workers and to legalize those already there - an idea that Helms doesn't seem to support.
However, Helms' committee passed a bill earlier this month that would eliminate the demand that U.S. presidents rate countries on their efforts to combat drug trafficking.
Mexico, and most other nations, have denounced the certification program as insulting and hypocritical coming from the world's largest drug-consuming nation.
