President Trump said Thursday that it may be for the best if Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto cancels his planned visit here next week, unless he’s willing to pony up money for the border wall.
Mr. Trump’s Twitter post came a day after Mexican officials, angered over his new executive orders on immigration, said they were considering nixing next week’s trip.
“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 fo the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Mr. Trump said in his new tweet.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump issued executive orders laying out early plans to build his proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mr. Pena Nieto, in a video posted to Twitter, again repeated his vow never to foot the bill, and said he’s ordered Mexico’s extensive network of consulates in the U.S. to do what they can to shield Mexican migrants.
An official also told the Associated Press that Mr. Pena Nieto is considering canceling his visit in retaliation for Mr. Trump’s forceful new moves.
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The Mexican leader is under intense political pressure to figure out how to handle Mr. Trump. An invite last year, during the presidential campaign, did not go so well, with the two men publicly disagreeing over whether they’d even broached the topic of paying for the wall.
Mr. Pena Nieto’s approval rating reportedly fell after that encounter, and he’s since been struggling to figure out a tactic to take with his country’s most important neighbor.
Mr. Trump’s executive orders Wednesday also instructed U.S. agents to begin making use of a part of the law that says illegal immigrants caught entering from the Mexican border can be shipped back to Mexico while they await their deportation hearings in the U.S.
That move could force Mexico to step up its own enforcement. Currently, for some migrants such as Haitians, Mexico issues 20-day transit passes — just enough time for the migrants to go from southern Mexico to the U.S. border.
Analysts expect that if those Haitians, once caught, were then shipped back to wait in Mexico for processing, the Mexican government may not be as willing to let them cross in the first place.
The Mexican government didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday on that new order by Mr. Trump.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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