Trump said Thursday his meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto would eventually result in Mexico paying for Trump’s border wall.
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She said she had hoped Trump would take a more moderate tone after the meeting with the Mexican president, but was disappointed by his speech later that day in her home state. “The humiliation is now complete”, he tweeted.
Trump has characterized Mexican immigrants to the U.S.as “rapists” and drug dealers.
“All the same complaints you hear from Donald Trump, President Pena Nieto would say exactly the same thing”, he said. “Nobody can tell me I plagiarized my thesis”, the president said.
Trump’s hardline immigration stance – he has pledged to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S – is aimed at Mexico, which is believed to account for more than half of this number.
Javier Urbano Reyes, a professor in the department of International Studies at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City, said he thought Trump gained a little with the meeting, but Mexico’s president lost a lot.
While Trump said they did not talk about who would pay for the wall, which is estimated to cost billions of dollars, Pena Nieto took to Twitter to clarify what happened in the meeting, posting: “At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall”. “Mr. Trump is the right guy for the job”.
A Trump presidency would undoubtedly be the worst possible outcome for Mexico.
Later in Phoenix, Trump said: “We will issue detainers for illegal immigrants who are arrested for any crime whatsoever and they will be placed into immediate removal proceedings”. “Serving as a carpet for Donald Trump won’t likely help him”.
Pena Nieto also highlighted five areas Mexico needs to prioritize going forward: education, poverty, security, corruption and helping families.
The Trump campaign shrugged off dissension among conservative Hispanics.
Democrats, however, aren’t buying the orchestrated affair, saying Trump has too often insulted immigrants and Mexicans.
Trump is using his presidential campaign to engage in petty feuds while boosting his own ego. “He fooled him [Pena Nieto]”.
After the two met in Mexico last Wednesday, Trump told reporters they did not discuss his demand that Mexico pay the cost for construction of a wall on the border between the two countries. Some people said it was hardening, some said softening.
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Information for this article was contributed by Peter Orsi, Christopher Sherman, Mark Stevenson and Maria Verza of The Associated Press and by Nacha Cattan and Eric Martin of Bloomberg News.
