Treasury minister Luis Videgaray has resigned, a ministry spokeswoman said, the week after Donald Trump travelled to Mexico to meet with President Ernesto Pena Nieto. “That’s how well we did”.
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Pena Nieto named Jose Antonio Meade to be his new Finance minister, after Luis Videgaray – said to have been behind the invitations to Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton – handed in his resignation.
An investigation led by the minister for public administration cleared Videgaray and Pena Nieto of wrongdoing past year, but critics questioned the probe as it was conducted by someone picked by the president.
An economist who earned a doctorate from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Videgaray saw the meeting as a political risk that was worth taking, in case Trump was elected, the Post said.
The visit was highly criticized by Mexicans, with many saying that it was a betrayal and a humiliation to the country to have Trump there.
It was only later that Pena Nieto said he had privately told Trump that he would not pay for the barrier.
The president, however, told Milenio television this week that he took the decision to invite Trump, and that “nobody recommended it to me”.
Videgaray’s role compromised his ability to negotiate the budget with the Congress this week, he added.
Despite the avalanche of criticism he has received for last Wednesday’s Trump visit, which Foreign Secretary Claudia Ruiz privately opposed, Peña Nieto has defended his decision and the outcome of their meeting.
It also reignited debate between Trump and Peña Nieto over the funding of Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S. -Mexico border.
“Mexico has lost a brilliant finance minister and wonderful man who I know is highly respected by President Peña Nieto”, Trump wrote in a tweet.
“I want to express here publicly my most generous recognition, not only institutionally but also personally, to someone who has always been a committed collaborator of the government’s for driving the transformation of Mexico”.
The economy has consistently fallen short of government growth forecasts during Videgaray’s tenure, and contracted in the second quarter for the first time in three years.
He denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest. Videgaray, one of the president’s closest allies in the past 10 years, pushed through a controversial tax increase in 2013 and championed the opening of the nation’s oil industry after 75 years of state monopoly.
Videgaray acted as Pena Nieto’s campaign manager during his 2012 election campaign and has been seen as the architect of many administration policies.
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Although the scandal is hurting Pena Nieto, Wilson said, ultimately, what matters to Mexicans is “kitchen table” issues such as the economy, public security and fighting corruption.
