The best thing about the meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican president Vicente Fox (with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper as witness) was that it was planned for Cancun, a place that, after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Wilma last fall, literally needs all the help it can get to regain its tourism. The worst thing about the meeting was that it wasn't expected to achieve much. It was like two neighbors who bump into each other in a bar and, before they part, say, "Let's have one for the road."

        In fact, this was to be the last meeting between both leaders before the presidential election in Mexico, on July 2. After that date, Fox will become a lame duck. Meanwhile, Bush will still be fighting his war in Iraq, without realizing that the part of the hemisphere to the south of the U.S. border is turning left and becoming increasingly more anti-American.

        The Cancun meeting changes nothing in Mexico-U.S. relations. The two presidents merely met to say bye bye.
The relationship between Bush and Fox can only be measured by results, not good intentions. Bush and Fox, like a bored married couple, started out supposedly as good friends and ended up neglecting one another. There was no real love. They made many promises at the beginning and in the end neither came through.

        The central theme of the relationship between Fox and Bush was always immigration. Its success or failure would be measured by whether the United States and Mexico could negotiate an immigration treaty, legalizing the presence of undocumented immigrants and establishing a safe and effective mechanism for new arrivals. The two countries couldn't manage to do that.
Such an agreement wasn't even negotiated. Where are the negotiators? When and where did they meet? Where are the drafts for the agreement? No matter what the U.S. Senate does in the coming days, in five years Bush and Fox failed to solve the problem that most worried them.

        It is true that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the U.S. agenda. Bush's two eyes were focused on Osama and Saddam and he didn't have a
third eye to see Vicente. But Mexico, too, failed in convincing the United States that the immigration issue goes hand in hand with its war on terrorism.

        Fox also failed to understand early on that in the United States laws are changed in Congress, which means visiting each and every legislator, and spending tons of money for the best lobbyists and public relations firms for
the job. But Fox's voice was seldom heard in the United States.

        In the last five years, every time there was criticism of Mexican immigrants on television or in English-language newspapers, there was no counterpoint. There was no response from a Mexican government spokesman.

        Where are all those Mexicans who studied abroad and who work for the government? Why aren't they allowed to speak?

        Mexico needs a whole army of spokesmen in the United States. But it doesn't exist. Because of that, the idea of erecting a wall between Mexico and the United States has progressed further than the idea of building a
bridge for immigrants to cross.

        The first time George and Vicente met as presidents was at Fox's ranch in San Cristobal, Guanajuato. On Friday, Feb. 16, 2001, the two had lunch on the patio, and afterward I saw them relaxed, smoking cigars.

        I was with a TV-crew in the sitting room at the ranch, looking out the window, and I was impressed by how well they seemed to get along. They joked, they patted each other on the back. Both were wearing boots. Neither was wearing a tie. Both wanted to help Mexican immigrants in the United States.

        Both seemed to understand the problem. That image, undoubtedly, represented the undocumented immigrants' best hope.

       But I should've noticed the clouds in the sky. Before lunch, Bush had ordered an air raid on Iraq. That was 25 months before the start of the war in Iraq. It was Bush's bombs, not his laughter with Fox, that said so much.

       I don't believe Fox understood it at the time. We were all misled. While Bush was saying Latin America would be his priority, the bombs were already exploding in Iraq. Now I realize that that afternoon Bush's mind was far away, thousands of miles from Fox's ranch in Guanajuato.
In an interview, that same day, Bush told me that if he ever caught Saddam Hussein building weapons of mass destruction and threatening security in the region, he would take action. It was the prelude to the war and none
of us realized it. Not even Fox.

        So, everything seems to indicate that the relationship between Bush and Fox was not as good and transparent as we thought at first. In fact, it began with ambiguities and ended without the prize. That better explains the failure of both Mexico and the United States to resolve the immigration issue.

        Yes, it was the last one for the road. One can only hope that those who follow will promise less and do more.