By STEVE HOLLAND, Reuters

                   SAN CRISTOBAL, Mexico--On his first foreign trip, President George W. Bush held discussions with his Mexican counterpart
              Vicente Fox today with hopes high for a closer partnership between the two countries.
                    Highlighting what many have predicted could become a personal rapport between two ranch owners, the U.S. president kissed
              Fox's mother in a family meeting before the talks that were due to include thorny issues such as drug trafficking.
                    Bush, who had met Fox while he was governor of Texas, was warmly welcomed by the Mexican leader for a trip that
              underscores the U.S. president's foreign policy focus on the Americas.
                    A military honor guard greeted him after the blue-and-white presidential plane, Air Force One, touched down at El Bajio airport
              in the Central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
                    The two leaders then sped by motorcade to the tiny village of San Cristobal where Fox introduced Bush to his elderly mother
              Mercedes Quesada before heading to the Mexican's ranch for a tour, meetings and a news conference.
                    "You look great," Bush told Fox's 81-year-old mother as he gave her a kiss on the cheek. The U.S. president was also
              introduced to other members of Fox's family circle.
                    Turning to face Fox, Bush said: "I thought your advice was going to be always listen to your mother."
                    Bush presented Quesada with a photograph of himself and his wife Laura. He was given a large platter as a gift.
                    DRUGS, MIGRANTS, TRADE
                    The U.S. president will hold several hours of talks with Fox, whose December 2000 inaugural ended 71 years of rule by the
              Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
                    No major announcements were expected to emerge from the meeting which will focus on the issues of narcotics trafficking,
              migration and trade, aides said.
                    Bush and Fox are scheduled to hold a news conference before the U.S. president leaves Mexico this afternoon to spend the
              weekend at his own ranch at Crawford, Texas, near Waco.
                    On the half-hour drive to the Fox family ranch from the airport, the presidential motorcade drove through open countryside.
              Pockets of Mexicans, waving the U.S. and Mexican flags, lined the highway.
                    Posters hanging from posts along the road showed the flags of both nations and two hands clasping, with the legend "Prospering
              Together."
                    On Thursday at the State Department, Bush said, "The doors are open to a closer partnership with the United States.
 
                    OPPORTUNITIES AND POTENTIAL
                    Aides said the presidents were expected to discuss Bush's aim to obtain more oil and electricity from Mexico, a trade dispute
              over Mexican truck traffic in the United States, and regional issues including Colombia's anti-drug battle and human rights in Cuba.
                    "I'm looking forward to hearing his ideas on expanding trade throughout the hemisphere, on safe and orderly migration, on
              expanding educational opportunity for all our children, and what we can do together to fight drug trafficking and other types of
              organized crime," Bush said.
                    "We must work with our neighbors to build a Western Hemisphere of freedom and prosperity, a hemisphere bound together by
              shared ideas and free trade from the Arctic to the Andes to Cape Horn," Bush said on Thursday.
                    "Some look south and see problems. Not me," Bush said. "I look south and see opportunities and potential."
                    Today, Fox said he would like an amnesty for millions of Mexicans who are working illegally in the United States.
                    "I would like to work toward ... getting an amnesty for those (Mexicans) who are in the United States, who are servicing the
              U.S. economy, who are servicing the country even if they are legal or illegal," Fox told CBS News.
                    Bush is to meet Colombian President Andres Pastrana in Washington on Feb. 27.
                    A senior U.S. official said on Thursday, however, that Bush was unlikely to appoint a special envoy for the Americas, in contrast
              to former President Clinton. The adviser said Bush "is a believer very strongly in the importance of the secretary of state in these
              regards."
                    Since his inauguration Bush's foreign policy has been driven, in part, by a keen interest in Western Hemisphere affairs.
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