Sunnylands Tours In-Demand

Palm Springs Life, October 2012

In keeping with the Annenbergs’ foundation directive, Sunnylands has hosted three high-level retreats.

In conjunction with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, The Retreat at Sunnylands brought together former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Congresswoman and Wilson Center President/CEO Jane Harman; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Mexican Ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan; and other political, academic, and media leaders to discuss relations between the United States and Mexico. On July 11, Cowan presented a white paper from the three-day retreat (March 29-April 1) to key members of Congress at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

U.S., Mexican Leaders Say the Old PRI is Gone

The Texas Tribune, 9/4/12

The return to power of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, will not be accompanied by the corruption that used to plague the party, says Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

At a panel hosted Tuesday by Richardson and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center, Sarukhan wouldn’t say whether he’d stay in his post if President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto asked him. But he said the PRI and the Mexican population have shifted, and that the country’s maturing democracy would not allow anyone to “turn back the clock.”

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A Stronger Future: Policy Recommendations for U.S.-Mexico Relations

Mexico Institute, 07/11/2012

The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands and the Wilson Center seized the opportunity provided by simultaneous election years in the United States and Mexico to convene a high-level retreat of preeminent political, business, academic, and media leaders from the two countries in March 2012. From this retreat emerged a fresh set of ideas to take the bilateral partnership to a new level that are put forth in the report, A Stronger Future: Policy Recommendations for U.S.-Mexico Relations.  The report presents recommendations to enhance regional competitiveness; reform the U.S. immigration system; more effectively fight organized crime and strengthen public security; further educational exchanges; increase energy cooperation; and develop ports of entry that strengthen trade and border security.

To download report click here.

For a video from the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands from A Stronger Future: Policy Recommendations for U.S.-Mexico Relations click here.

Mexico Confronts Bloody Present to Ensure Brighter Future

Yahoo News, 5/23/2012
Interview with Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican Ambassador to the United States, for ABC News

Last week the Zetas cartel of Mexico dumped 49 decapitated bodies on a highway about 100 miles southwest of Texas border, in the latest massacre in the ongoing fight between Mexican drug cartels.

The drug war in Mexico has claimed over 50,000 victims since 2006 and even though it’s on the border with the United States, it is one of the least reported international stories. These gangs, particularly the Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartels, have become so powerful that local governments are outmanned and outgunned- left to call in Mexican armed forces to contain the gunfights.

It’s become an impossible story to report. Since 2007, 13 journalists have been killed in Mexico and many have sought refuge in foreign countries including three who were granted asylum in the United States and Canada, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

To discuss the issue Christiane Amanpour sat down with someone on the front lines in this battle Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican Ambassador to the United States. In an extended interview, Ambassador Sarukahn spoke candidly about the stakes of this fight, what “victory” will look like, and the important parallel future the United States and Mexico share.

Access interview on video here.

Mexico ‘Critically Important’ to U.S. Economy

CONTEXT, Woodrow Wilson Center, 2/28/2012

At a recent event, the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute introduced a new publication, Working Together: Economic Ties between the United States and Mexico. The ensuing discussion focused on two economies joined at the hip and how enhanced cooperation could result in much-needed job creation. That’s an outcome that would be welcomed on both sides of the border. To further explore the economic ties that bind the two North American neighbors, we spoke with former United States Trade Representative, Carla Hills, and Mexican Ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan.

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Perry’s suggestion to send U.S. troops south riles Mexican officials

CNN, 10/4/11

Arturo Sarukhan

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s suggestion that the United States may send troops to fight Mexican drug cartels riled officials and spurred debate from analysts on both sides of the border Monday.

Mexico’s top representative in the United States rejected the idea, which the Republican presidential candidate mentioned at a New Hampshire campaign stop Saturday.

Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan told reporters his country’s longstanding opposition to the presence of American forces had not changed.

“It may be well-intentioned, but it has the potential of really undermining cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico,” said Eric L. Olson, who studies security relationships between the neighboring countries at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

“If there’s a perception in Mexico that this is all designed somehow as a backdoor entry into Mexico by the U.S., if there’s a perception that this is leading to the United States’ direct intervention into Mexico, it puts at risk all those cooperative efforts,” Olson said.

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For the SPANISH version of this story, click here.

Perry’s suggestion to send U.S. troops south riles Mexican officials (In Spanish))

CNN Mexico, 10/3/11

Arturo Sarukhan

La sugerencia del gobernador de Texas, Rick Perry, acerca de que Estados Unidos envíe soldados para combatir a los cárteles de la droga en México irritó a funcionarios mexicanos y detonó este lunes un debate entre analistas en ambos lados de la frontera.

El más alto representante de México en Estados Unidos rechazó la idea, que fue planteada por el aspirante a la candidatura presidencial del Partido Republicano en un acto de campaña en New Hampshire el sábado.

El embajador Arturo Sarukhán dijo a periodistas que la tradicional oposición de su país a la presencia de soldados estadounidenses no ha cambiado.

“El tema de la participación o presencia de tropas estadounidenses en suelo mexicano no está sobre la mesa (de negociaciones)”, dijo Sarukhán. “No es un componente que forme parte de los acercamientos que México y Estados Unidos han estado usando para confrontar al crimen organizado transnacional”.

“Puede ser bien intencionada, pero tiene el potencial de afectar la cooperación entre Estados Unidos y México”, dijo Eric L. Olson, quien estudia las relaciones de ambos países desde el punto de vista de la seguridad en el Instituto México del Centro Internacional Woodrow Wilson International, en Washington.

“Si en México existe la percepción de que todo está diseñado para crear una puerta de entrada para Estados Unidos, si existe la percepción de que esto llevará a la intervención de Estados Unidos, se ponen en riesgo los esfuerzos de cooperación”, dijo Olson.

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For ENGLISH, click here.

Foreign media ‘focus too much on Mexico drug violence’

Arturo Sarukhan

BBC News, 11/11/2010

Mexico’s ambassador to the US has criticised the international media for paying excessive attention to the drug-related violence in his country.

Arturo Sarukhan said news organisations gave the impression the whole of Mexico was ablaze with violence. He said stories such as economic ties with the US and the rise of the Mexican middle class went unreported.

More than 28,000 people have died in Mexico since the government crackdown on drug cartels began in late 2006. Ambassador Sarukhan, who was speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said international media failed to give the context or a wider vision of Mexico when reporting about the country.

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Mexico Fights Back

Newsweek, 11/8/2010

Arturo Sarukhan

From a major dip in economic growth to a spike in drug-related violence, the past two years have been tumultuous ones in Mexico. But there are some early signs of change. The country’s economy is humming once again, and in recent months authorities have arrested several major leaders of various drug cartels. NEWSWEEK’s R. M. Schneiderman spoke with Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, about the country’s economy and the war on drugs.

Why has President Felipe Calderónlaunched this war against narcotraffickers?
[He] launched this offensive because organized crime today is the most important challenge to the rule of law in Mexico.

Why does the violence seem so much worse in a border city like Juárez compared with, say, Tijuana?
The baseline from which the federal government started attacking the problem is very different. For many years, as a result of the influx of foreign direct investment that was coming from a lot of the assembly and manufacturing facilities into Ciudad Juárez, it became one of the cities in Mexico with the highest per capita income. But if you look at things like number of clinics, number of day-care centers, number of cinemas, number of theaters, number of parks, Ciudad Juárez is in the lowest percentile of Mexico’s cities in terms of social infrastructure. That disparity is what, among other things, has been taken advantage of by the drug syndicates. In Tijuana there is a much deeper, wider middle class.

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Sarukhán: Mexico and the U.S. Would Sink Together (in Spanish)

El Universal, 5/18/2010

During his visit to the United States, the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, will make it very clear to the northern neighbor that both countries “will sink or swim together” in the fight against the drug cartels, to shore up the economy, or in resolving migration issues, said the Mexican ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhán.

“Both countries can no longer make distinctions between their foreign and domestic policy,” assured the diplomat, speaking about the complementarity and the almost organic character of bilateral relations on security issues, economics, health, the environment, energy or migration.

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