Donald Trump arrived Mexico on Wednesday in a plane that parked at the presidential hangar at Mexico City’s worldwide airport, an airport spokesman said.
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Pena Nieto tried gamely to take the high road and avoid arguing with Trump, who didn’t waver an inch in his plans to build a wall along the two countries’ border.
“We did discuss the wall, we didn’t discuss payment of the wall, that will be at a later date”. He relayed that this was only a preliminary meeting, which went well. The inclusion of Trump puzzled many in Mexico, who said it wasn’t clear why their own unpopular president would agree to meet with someone so widely disliked in his country.
Trump’s contention that illegal immigration and the flight of manufacturing jobs were hurting Mexicans too did little to win hearts and minds south of the border.
In campaign rallies for the November 8 election, the NY businessman frequently tells approving crowds that Mexico must pay for his planned wall.
Trump and Nieto held a meeting behind closed doors and a short joint press event.
Some observers wondered whether the GOP nominee’s whirlwind agenda Wednesday marked a last-minute effort to rebuild his relationship with Latinos and immigrants in the United States, where the largest single group of immigrants hails from Mexico. “Nieto also delivered the following statement: “[The Mexican people are] honest people, working people, people that respect family and respect live in the community, and they respect the law”. Pena Nieto has been sharply critical of Trump’s immigration policies, particularly the Republican’s plans to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it.
The aid added: “Secretary Clinton last met with President Pena Nieto in Mexico in 2014 and our campaign is in a regular dialogue with the Mexican government officials”.
“It’s a lost cause”, said Morales, an immigrant from Mexico who teaches at Harvard Divinity School and who has absolutely no plans to watch Trump’s speech.
Apparently, Nieto decided he could not do any worse by making himself the stooge and Quisling of Despicable Donald, who had laced his earlier primary campaign announcement with the warning that: make no mistake about it, Mexico is our enemy.
The trip, a politically risky move for Trump 10 weeks before America’s presidential Election Day, came just hours before the Republican nominee was to deliver a highly anticipated speech in Arizona about illegal immigration.
The visit follows an invitation from President Enrique Pena Nieto, but protests are expected.
With Mr Trump trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton in most polls, the trip could allow him to seize control of the campaign narrative at a crucial time and capitalise on dramatic optics that put him on the stage with a global leader. His visit to Mexico was also widely opposed by the public there. “And it certainly takes more than trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again”. “That is not how it works”, Clinton said. Trump reiterated his concerns surrounding trade and immigration, but spoke of them in terms of shared interests.
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Trump called Mexican-Americans “spectacular” and “amazing”, and Pena Nieto mentioned disagreements and the fact that Mexicans felt “aggrieved”, but Mexico’s president never did what people here wanted most: demand that Trump apologize for suggesting that many Mexican migrants are rapists or criminals.
