Obama blames U.S. guns in Mexico

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By Stephen Dinan

MEXICO CITY | Meeting face-to-face with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, President Obama on Thursday said the U.S. is to blame for much of Mexico's drug violence, and he set up a major congressional gun-control battle by calling on the Senate to ratify a treaty designed to track and cut the flow of guns to other countries.

Mr. Obama said he wants to renew a ban on some semiautomatic weapons but that it is not likely to pass Congress. Instead, he called for the Senate to ratify a decade-old hemispherewide treaty that would require nations to mark all weapons produced in the country and track them to make sure no weapons were exported to countries where they were banned.

"I will not pretend that this is Mexico's responsibility alone. The demand for these drugs in the United States is what's helping keep these cartels in business," Mr. Obama said at a joint news conference with Mr. Calderon. "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."

But the treaty is likely to run into opposition from gun rights backers, and the Senate's top Democrat was noncommittal Thursday about the measure.

Mr. Calderon urged the U.S. to consider a gun registry and a prohibition on bulk sales of firearms.

On other issues, Mr. Calderon pushed Mr. Obama to develop an immigration policy that would legalize illegal Mexican immigrants and establish a future flow of workers. The Mexican president also said he had presented Mr. Obama with proposals for a bilateral carbon-dioxide emissions trading scheme to combat climate change, and with a plan for infrastructure projects on the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to boost jobs and cooperation.

The two also found areas of disagreement. On Cuba, Mexico would like the U.S. to lift its trade embargo entirely while Mr. Obama has taken an incremental approach. They also disagreed on a program allowing some Mexican trucks to operate far into the U.S.

Mexico says it is entitled to operate trucks in the U.S. under a free-trade agreement, but Congress and Mr. Obama ended the program earlier this year.

Mr. Obama is making a one-day visit to Mexico before flying Friday to Trinidad, where he will attend the Summit of the Americas with leaders of 33 other Western Hemisphere nations.