Unlike Donald Trump, President Barack Obama does not think that the nation is “on the verge of collapse”.
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“I would not anticipate that much time at all being spent on discussing that”, Earnest said.
Regarding Trump’s remarks on illegal immigration in the states, Obama said that the rate of illegal migration today “lower by two-thirds than it was when Ronald Reagan was president”.
Pena Nieto said Friday that his past remarks were “taken out of context” and he promised to work “in a very constructive manner” with Obama’s successor.
The news conference came the morning after the closing of the Republican National Convention and a speech by GOP nominee Donald Trump, whose demands that Mexico pay for a US border wall and descriptions of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists have offended the neighboring country.
A man who openly vilifies Mexicans and Americans of Mexican descent accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday in Cleveland.
“The closeness between the USA and Mexico is more than a relationship between two governments”, Pena Nieto said through a translator in his opening remarks.
“We’re not going to make good decisions on fears that don’t have a basis in fact”.
Obama pointedly celebrated the US relationship with Mexico at a news conference after meeting with Pena Nieto.
“The United States values tremendously our enduring partnership with Mexico and our extraordinary ties of family and friendship with the Mexican people”, Obama said at a Friday press conference at the White House.
The president also took issue with the way Republicans portrayed immigration. Both Trump and Clinton have said they oppose the TPP, which has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Congress.
Pena Nieto tweeted Thursday after arriving in Washington that he was happy to be in the U.S. capital to continue productive talks with Obama about the U.S. -Mexico agenda.
About a dozen protesters gathered outside the White House during Pena Nieto’s visit, with signs demanding justice for 43 Mexican college students who went missing in Mexico’s southern state of Guerrero in 2014.
The president’s contention that illegal immigration is at the lowest level in decades is hard to examine because, by definition, the government is unaware of such border crossings.
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The New York businessman has also promised to slap tariffs on some US products made in Mexico, and seek radical changes or even discard the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Friday’s announcement of a new air transport agreement will open more U.S. Trump called some Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “killers” when he announced his campaign more than a year ago, and earlier this year accused the federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against his Trump University of bias because of the US-born judge’s Mexican heritage. And Mexico and the US will co-host refugee talks at the U.N.in September.
