Trump to Mexico: Don’t Bother Coming to Your Meeting if You Don’t Plan on Paying for Wall — UPDATE, Mexico’s President Responds
Posted on January 26, 2017
President Trump is not playing games when it comes to the wall and Mexico paying for it. In a response to President Nieto’s promise to protect illegals in America, Trump hits back hard… and we don’t think he is going to back down either.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Pena Nieto, should cancel his scheduled visit to Washington if Mexico refuses to pay for a wall he has ordered constructed along the border.
His message could undo a planned summit next week during which the two leaders were expected to address a relationship frayed by the new U.S. president’s determination to build a wall along their shared border and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
A Mexican government minister said that cancelling the meeting would cause uncertainty.
“The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers… of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Trump said on Twitter.
Even before Trump’s tweet, Pena Nieto faced growing pressure at home to scrap the meeting over objections to the border wall.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
Trump signed new executive orders, including one authorizing the planned wall, on Wednesday just as a Mexican delegation led by Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray arrived at the White House for talks.
The timing caused outrage in Mexico, with prominent politicians and many on social media seeing at as a deliberate snub to the government’s efforts to engage with Trump, who has for months used Mexico as a political punching bag.
The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017
of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017
UPDATE
Pena Nieto announced via social media on Thursday that he had informed the White House he would not visit Washington next week as scheduled.
“This morning we informed the White House that I will not attend the scheduled work meeting for next Tuesday with @POTUS,” he tweeted in Spanish.
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