/ AFP PHOTO
by Andrew BEATTY
Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – President Donald Trump on Thursday challenged Mexico’s president to cancel an upcoming visit to Washington if he is unwilling to foot the bill for a US border wall, escalating the war of words between the neighbors.
After Enrique Pena Nieto Trump denounced the new Republican leader’s decision to move ahead with the project, Trump took to Twitter to publicly upbraid him for refusing to fund the US administration’s signature policy.
“If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Trump said.
Talks have been scheduled to take place at the White House next week.
On Wednesday, Trump ordered officials to begin to “plan, design and construct a physical wall” along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) US-Mexico border.
Stemming immigration was a central plank of Trump’s election campaign, but he has struggled to articulate how the wall will be paid for, beyond saying “Mexico will pay.”
As Trump was ramping up the tension on Twitter, Republican leaders casually announced they would try to carve out $12-15 billion worth of US taxpayers’ money for the project.
But that is unlikely to be the end of a dispute with America’s neighbor to the south, which has presented Trump with a self-generated foreign policy crisis during his first week in office.
‘Mexico will not pay for any wall’
Trump’s order had put Pena Nieto under fierce domestic pressure to hit back, and hit back the Mexican leader did in a video message to the nation late Wednesday.
“I regret and condemn the decision of the United States to continue construction of a wall that, for years, has divided us instead of uniting us,” Pena Nieto said.
“I have said it time and again: Mexico will not pay for any wall,” he added.
Around two in three Mexicans have a favorable opinion of the United States, according to Pew surveys, but anti-American and anti-Trump sentiment is not uncommon.
Pena Nieto saw his own approval rating slide late last year, after he hosted Trump — then still a White House candidate — in Mexico City.
Trump didn’t waste time responding to Pena Nieto’s video.
The bareknuckle early-morning tweet — already a signature Trump move — shocked diplomats, but is in keeping with the mogul’s hardball approach to negotiations and is likely to delight his supporters.
NAFTA a ‘one-sided deal’?
Trump also took to Twitter to gripe about the trade gap between Mexico and the United States.
“The US has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost,” he said.
That deficit for the trade in goods is slightly higher than the overall trade deficit — including services — of $49 billion in 2015.
Trump has vowed to renegotiate the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico the United States and Canada.
That renegotiation could provide one way for Trump to claim victory, through increased tariffs on Mexican goods or higher border transit costs.
But it could also risk retaliatory tariffs or blowback from US firms who export $267 billion a year south of the border.
Trump has also ordered officials to scour US government departments and agencies in search of “direct and indirect” aid or assistance to the Mexican government and report back within 30 days.
The United States is expected to provide about $134 million worth of assistance to Mexico this year, with much of the spending wrapped up in the “Merida Initiative” to combat drug cartels.
Trump is travelling to a Republican congressional retreat in Philadelphia on Thursday, where he will have to calm some jitters.
While Trump has pursued a solidly conservative governing agenda, his outbursts over inauguration crowd size, his war of words with the media, and revival of his claim of massive voter fraud has led to concerns within his own party.
The meeting will feature another high-profile guest: British Prime Minister Theresa May, who will become the first foreign leader to meet Trump since his inauguration.
May, who addresses the Republican retreat shortly after Trump’s joint session, will almost certainly discuss the prospects of a key post-Brexit trade deal with the United States when she meets with Trump in Washington on Friday.
The two leaders will hold a joint news conference, the White House said.
