Mexican Ambassador Andres Rosenthal offered a detailed analysis of his government’s top priorities under the leadership of newly-elected President Vicente Fox Wednesday evening.

NAFTA, drug trafficking, immigration and foreign policy were the concerns of the new Mexico, Rosenthal said in his speech entitled “The Mexican Political Transition and its Economic Significance.”

The panel was presented by the Georgetown University Latin American Students Association and hosted three speakers: Rosenthal, a former Mexican ambassador to Switzerland and England, Jaime Sanchez Sussarey, a political analyst for Mexican newspaper El Reforma and university professor, and Licenciado Moises Pineda, the World Bank director for Mexico, Central America, Venezuela and Spain. The panel’s moderator was government Professor John Bailey.

Rosenthal, who helped elect Fox, said that the new government’s top priority was fiscal reform. According ro Rosenthal, the Mexican economy is reportedly “in good shape” and noted that Fox emphasized his new government will not be a government of his party, but one which unites all groups. Rosenthal also spoke of the need to “have the constitution that we have respected and implemented,” and not create a new one.

He outlined several foreign policy changes which the new regime is putting in place, including giving greater priority to exico’s relationship with Latin America – not simply focusing on the United States and the EU – moving the United States and Mexico towards an “equal and stable relationship and partnership,” including working towards open borders between the US, Canada and Mexico.

Rosenthal’s daughter graduated from the School of Foreign Service and is now pursuing a master’s degree at Georgetown in Latin American Studies.

After Rosenthal spoke, Sussarey gave a journalist’s point of view on these same issues and Pineda, a graduate of the Public Policy Institute, later spoke about the economic repercussions of the transition to a new administration. All three answered audience members’ questions at the end of the discussion.

Institutions sponsoring the event included the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Mexico Project, part of the Center for Latin American Studies. The talk was part of the Latin American Student Association’s Mexican Week, which also included a conference on Mexican literature and a book exhibit on Tuesday and a Mexican Gala at the Mexican Cultural Institute this evening at 6:15.

LASA President Alfredo Toro Carnevali (COL ’02) explained that Mexican Week is part of a program initiative by association called Latin America Country by Country. LASA sponsored Columbia Week in October, which included literary, political, cultural and business administration events, which Toro said were attended by a total of around 800 people.