WASHINGTON-President Barack Obama is hosting Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the White House on Friday, after which the two leaders will hold a joint news conference.
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President Barack Obama, left, and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, right, arrive for a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, July 22, 2016.
Though the Mexican government has criticized the way Trump has insulted Mexican immigrants and his idea of building a wall along the border, Peña Nieto said he was sure that with the next US government it will nonetheless be possible to take bilateral relations forward.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Wednesday that he doubted Obama would raise Trump’s proposed wall with the Mexican president.
Instead, he showered Obama with praise, calling him a “very good neighbor” and saying U.S. “And I’m going to let the American people judge how persuasive their arguments were”. Trump said that if he is elected, “safety will be restored” at home and overseas.
From crime to immigration, Obama said, Trump and various other speakers at the Republican convention embellished the facts in their depictions of widespread death and a flood of migrants coming across American borders. “One of the best ways of preventing it is making sure we don’t divide our own country, that we don’t succumb to fear, that we don’t sacrifice our values, and that we send a very strong signal to the world and to every American citizen that we’re in this together”. Clinton will accept her party’s nomination next week in Philadelphia.
Pena Nieto’s visit comes less than a month after he and Obama met in Canada during a summit of North America’s leaders.
The New York businessman has also promised to slap tariffs on some USA products made in Mexico, and seek radical changes or even discard the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada, paving the way for bilateral trade agreements.
According to President Obama, Trump’s fear-mongering speech about crime and terrorism simply does not line up with the reality of the life in the United States today.
Trump painted a dire portrait of a nation wracked by crime and people who have given up work.
“The Mexican government will be observing with great interest the electoral process of this country”, Nieto said, “but it will not give its opinion – it will not get involved in said process”.
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“We’re not going to be able to build a wall around that”, he said.
