Obama Visits Mexico, Housing Market Stumbles

JUDY WOODRUFF:

Our lead story today: President Obama arrived in Mexico for a visit with President Felipe Calderon.

On their meeting agenda, the growing flow of drugs and weapons across the border, and immigration. Both leaders touched on those subjects at a joint news conference held late this afternoon in Mexico City.

Here's an excerpt of what President Obama said.

BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: There's one particular area that requires our urgent and coordinated action, and that is the battle that's taking place with respect — with respect to the drug cartels that are fueling kidnappings and sowing chaos in our communities and robbing so many of a future both here in Mexico and in the United States.

I've said this before; I will repeat it. I have the greatest admiration and courage for President Calderon and his entire cabinet, his rank-and-file police officers and soldiers as they take on these cartels. I commend Mexico for the successes that have already been achieved, but I will not pretend that this is Mexico's responsibility alone.

A demand for these drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business. This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.

So we have responsibilities, as well. We have to do our part. We have to crack down on drug use in our cities and towns. We have to stem the southbound flow of guns and cash.

And we are absolutely committed to working in a partnership with Mexico to make sure that we are dealing with this scourge on both sides of the border.

And that's why we're ramping up the number of law enforcement personnel on our border. That's why, for the first time, we are inspecting trains leaving our country, not just those entering it. That's why our Department of Homeland Security is making up to $59 million available to defend our common border from this threat to both of our countries.

In addition, as President Calderon and I discussed, I'm urging the Senate in the United States to ratify an inter-American treaty known as CIFTA to curb small-arms trafficking that is a source of so many of the weapons used in this drug war.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

We'll have more on U.S.-Mexico relations after the other news of the day.