Interviewer
Prime Minister, I would like to begin the interview by asking you what Mexico and Latin America mean to Europe politically and geographically?
Prime Minister
I think that Latin America and Mexico have always had close relations with Europe throughout history and in particular we in Britain helped to open up some of the Latin American countries financially and with railways and trade and so on.
Of course, with two World Wars, the relationship became a little bit more distant but then, in the post-war period it has come together very much more again because really we realise that what happens in one country affects what goes on in another and the whole world is working together much more closely.
Our immediate interest in the area of Central America is, of course, Belize, where we keep troops at their request, to ensure democracy. [end p1]
Mexico, we have always known a great deal about and taken a great interest in. We have watched the terrible tragedies that she has had, with earthquakes and volcanoes, and marvelled at the way in which she has coped. We know that she has considerable debt problems and we admire very much the way in which they are being dealt with.
Interviewer
Mexico has begun a series of important changes of its political, economic and social structures in order to face its contemporary problems. How do you see this transformation from London?
Prime Minister
We see that President Salinas is tackling it with a will. You really had a very great deal of your industry under state ownership and we would say that politicians do not really know how to run industry. It is very much better for people who know about a particular industry - those who manage it and those who work in it - to run it, because they know all the details.
We know that you have immense population problems and therefore that you have to try to raise the output in that country to cater for the rising numbers of people. [end p2]
I have only been to Mexico once; I greatly enjoyed the brief visit. I went round hospitals, I talked to the Government, we signed a big trading contract and also we went to talk about the problems of what are called “Third World Countries” in Canc&uacu;n, so we are pretty familiar with the enormous problems, but you are tackling them, getting your finances straight, getting industry more run by private enterprise and, I hope, helping to give some hope for a rising standard of prosperity for the people because in politics hope is a very important factor - you have always got to have hope.
Interviewer
Mexico has a deficitory trade balance with Britain. Now that President Salinas has begun to liberalise Mexican trade policies, can he expect greater reciprocity from our European trading partners?
Prime Minister
In the European Community, the twelve countries which compose it are trying to create a single market, that is to say that certain standards will apply to goods throughout the Community - certain quality standards, certain mechanical and electrical standards - and in the financial world we will be able to deal as easily in other countries as in our own and have much freer movement of people. [end p3]
All of that and the regulations we have about our goods are not to keep other goods out. We have tried to get down all the barriers to trade within as an example to other people to get them down without, so that we increase the amount of trade from one country to another. This is the way you raise the standard of prosperity of all people - by increasing trade. You cannot get an exact balance between each two countries because they have different needs but we all get better off by increasing trade, by making things one for another and by being able to sell them freely.
Of course, the newly-industrialised countries have special terms and special preferences which do not apply to the older ones, but our ambition is to open up the trade so that people can raise the standard of living themselves by making goods and selling them and not to have Europe as a protectionist, which really would not suit the people in Europe and nor would it suit the people who trade with us.
Interviewer
But do you think the Western European Governments will concentrate their attention on Eastern Europe and pay even less attention to Latin America? [end p4]
Prime Minister
No, I do not. Of course, we are all looking at Eastern Europe. That is because those countries are the first few countries that have thrown away - thrown off - Communism completely; it does not work. It does not work for the dignity of the individual, it gives them no freedom; it does not work for prosperity and they are the first five that have thrown off that yoke and naturally, we want to help as much as possible, to help them build a much freer society and a more prosperous one.
But that does not mean you forget others - you cannot. The world is very small. All environmental matters, for example, affect us all; they do not stop from one border to another. Agricultural products are sold across the world and we all have to look at the subsidies and the prices. Fundamental capital goods like steel are sold across the world, please do not think that just because we have one particular interest it means that the other is diminished - it most certainly is not.
Latin America still has some problems with Communism. I know that they are having an election in Nicaragua - we shall look at it very carefully - but you still have Cuba and you still have some problems there which affect us all. We keep, as I indicated, troops in Belize but we shall still take a lot of interest in Mexico and Central and Latin America. [end p5]
Interviewer
Are there good prospects to re-establish the relationship between Britain and Argentina?
Prime Minister
We are doing our level best to re-establish good commercial relationships, we have wanted to do it for quite a long time. Indeed, we have freely imported goods from Argentina to Britain but until just recently they have not been able to go the other way. President Menem was anxious to re-establish good commercial and leading to diplomatic relations and we have been very active in trying to do just that. And the first stage of the arrangements that we have made are working well and that is good. [end p6]
Interviewer
After ten years as Prime Minister, what do you consider to be the major achievements of your government and what is your response to your critics on inflationary pressures, union unrest and wage demands?
Prime Minister
First, the standard of prosperity we have is quite beyond anything that could have been dreamed of ten years ago and that is because we have in fact put back many industries out of state control, back to free enterprise; we have cut down the number of regulations so that industries are freer to make their own decisions and they do and therefore they become more efficient; we have cut down the level of taxation of tax rates so that it gives people more incentive to work because they can keep more of their own money themselves; and we have altered the whole of trade union law because we felt that the trade union bosses had far too much control over the members of the trade union and that was not right. So we insisted that if there is to be a strike then it can only be after a ballot of all members and so the members decide, and we have made a number of other changes.
That really has made us a much much more prosperous country. We are also a country that believes in a staunch defence and we are a very staunch ally both to the United States, to NATO and to Europe. And partly because I suppose of our world experience and because we have revived our economy we have quite an important place in the world again. [end p7]
With regard to inflation, it is I am afraid 7.7 per cent a year which is much too high, high for us, high for a Conservative Government, but it is nothing like the 26, 27 per cent which it got up to under the last Labour Government and so we have taken action to get it down because as I say, 7.7 per cent is too high and we have to be quite firm in getting it down again and we shall.
Interviewer
You were the first Western leader to recognise the personality of Mr. Gorbachev. Do you think he is going to succeed?
Prime Minister
I most earnestly hope so, Mikhail Gorbachevhe is a remarkable person, a person of great vision, he saw that communism was not working, a person of great courage, he had the courage to say so, a person of great inspiration and initiative because he had the ideas of glasnost and perestroika that needed to be done. And I think too he understood that the change would be of a magnitude so great that they have never been tried before and that they would take a long time.
And it is easier to bring about political freedom and freedom of speech and movement and freedom of worship than of course it is to bring about prosperity because the politicians can make the rules which bring about the political freedom but the people have to respond in the way they work and their enterprise in order to build the prosperity. [end p8]
Of course when you have freedom of speech for the first time for years all the criticisms come out, people have not been able openly to criticise before, all the old inherent quarrels between the nationalities and groups come out. That was only to be expected.
I think he surmounts every problem remarkably well and I believe that he will get through. It will be quite a difficult and long task but it is such a bold one and so very well worth doing, it will be historic change.
Interviewer
Does a male dominated world demand that women be just as powerful as men and is that why you became the “Iron Lady”?
Prime Minister
I think women have always been powerful behind the scenes, always so. That is inevitable, they bring up the children and their views always count for quite a lot in the family. I think as a result certainly in Europe of two World Wars, women had to take over many of the jobs that men did as men went off to fight the war and then it was realised that women could do them.
Before that they had become qualified doctors and later lawyers and so really we won our spurs, we won our increasing freedom. And now it is how to blend this new increasing freedom with the fundamental way of life because the family is the unit of all civilised countries, how to combine those two together and women too are learning to do that. [end p9]
Do you think of people as a man President or a woman President? You get a woman President or Prime Minister when a suitable person arises, not before, and we are not unusual now. There was Mrs Gandhi, alas it was terrible that she was assassinated, she was a marvellous Prime Minister. There was Golda Xyer. There is a Norwegian Gro Harlem BrundtlandPrime Minister and Dominica Eugenia Charles, so we are quite a lot of us.
Interviewer
Do you feel comfortable?
Prime Minister
Yes certainly.