Felipe Calderon

What sort of initiatives do you plan to pursue in your first 100 days in office?

I have clearly established three priorities: combatting poverty, creating jobs--which was the principal platform of my campaign--and improving public security. Regarding poverty, I want to create a public-policy consensus, above all in education and health, that will let me move ahead quickly, and I'll need support from the Congress for these budget priorities. As for employment, I insisted during my campaign--and I still insist--that we need a competitive, job-creating economy. But in order to have that, you have to make market conditions more competitive, and that means reducing the monopoly power of some public and private companies. Third, public safety is the most difficult challenge we face. I hope to push through reforms that will address judicial and law-enforcement problems.

In the U.S., people say that Mexico is just next door, but it seems to be thousands of miles away economically, while China is thousands of miles away, but it seems to be just next door economically. Why is the Mexican economy so far behind?

There are several elements we need to reform in order to become more competitive. One is a system based on the rule of law. According to one study, the difference between developing economies that observe the rule of law and economies that don't is a more-than-3% growth in GDP. There is a lot of room for improvement in Mexico's government and judicial practices. Second, I am considering reducing the tax rate in order to promote a tax system that is competitive with other developing countries, such as China. Third, we need to create more jobs to take advantage of the growing number of young people entering the workforce each year.

Immigration has become one of the hottest topics in U.S. politics. Could you give me your view on this divisive issue from your side of the border?

I cannot imagine the future of North America--Canada, the U.S., Mexico--without a free market. Free in all senses of the word, in terms of goods and services and in terms of labor too. You cannot have an efficient and prosperous economy, even in the U.S., without developing a single, free market. On the other hand, I realize how important the immigration problem is for Americans. It is the same for Mexico. Every year we lose the best of our people: young, responsible, hardworking people. In Mexico you see a lot of towns made up of only women and the elderly. That is not exactly the country we want to have. I believe that migration is a bilateral problem, and it needs to be solved by creating jobs in Mexico. First we need to create a framework in order to promote investment in Mexico. Then we need to come up with government-sponsored works projects to create new jobs. My philosophy is that to stop migration, it is better to build a road in Michoacan than a wall in Texas.