“We’re not going to be able to make decisions based on fears that don’t have a basis in fact”, Obama said.
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The violent crime rate, he said, has been lower during his presidency than any time in the last three or four decades. Obama didn’t address Republican nominee Donald Trump by name, but he touched on some of the biggest themes of the mogul’s speech.
“A Mexico that has a healthy economy, a Mexico that can help us build stability and security in Central America, that’s going to do a lot more to solve any migration crisis or drug trafficking problem than a wall”, Obama said. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama’s 2008 primary rival and then his secretary of state, will receive the Democratic nomination next week. Obama has said that Trump has been successful enough in generating his own publicity without any presidential mentions.
“It’s no coincidence”, said Christopher Sabatini, a lecturer in Latin American affairs at Columbia University, said of Pena Nieto’s visit on Friday. At one point, the crowd chanted, “Build that wall”.
During his speech, Trump argued that crime rates in the United States have increased under Obama’s tenure, saying that “decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement”.
It was a change of tone from March, when Pena Nieto condemned Trump’s “strident tone” and compared his rhetoric to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
“The reality is that these are two countries that are working together, that have an intense commercial, political and social relationship”, Paulo Carreno, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, said in a July 14 interview in Mexico City. “But in this case, it’s been a while since the president has hosted the president of Mexico here at the White House”.
“We’re not just strategic or economic partners – we’re neighbors, and we’re friends”.
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President Obama and Mexican President Pena Nieto offered full-throated defenses of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and NAFTA on Friday, responding to questions about rising skepticism toward trade and whether globalization had left behind large chunks of each country’s population.
