Don't visit if you don't pay
US President Donald Trump yesterday told Mexico's president to cancel an upcoming visit to Washington if he is unwilling to foot the bill for a border wall.
Escalating a cross border war of words, Trump took to Twitter to publicly upbraid Enrique Pena Nieto.
"If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting."
Talks have been scheduled to take place at the White House next week.
On Wednesday, the mercurial US leader ordered officials to begin to "plan, design and construct a physical wall" along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) US-Mexico border.
Lawmakers are pressuring President Enrique Pena Nieto to scrap Tuesday's talks in Washington after Trump made good on his campaign pledge to quickly order the construction of the barrier.
In an executive order titled "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements", Trump on Wednesday signed into law many of the pledges he made during his election campaign. These include building a wall along the US-Mexico border, deporting illegal immigrants, establishing new immigration detention centres and hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol agents.
"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 in a nationally televised message.
"I have said it time and again: Mexico will not pay for any wall," he said, referring to Trump's vow to make the southern neighbor pay for the barrier.
Pena Nieto said he would wait for a report from a high-level Mexican delegation holding meetings in the US capital this week and consult with governors and lawmakers before deciding on "the next steps to take."
Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who was in Washington, told the Televisa network that Pena Nieto will weigh whether to travel to Washington but that "the meeting stands for now."
Pena Nieto is under pressure to avoid meeting Trump again, with Senator Miguel Barbosa, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), saying Pena Nieto should not let Trump "impose his conditions" in negotiations.
Margarita Zavala, a potential 2018 presidential candidate of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), wrote on Twitter that Trump's announcement was "an affront to Mexico" and that Pena Nieto must reconsider his trip.
Other political stalwarts urged Pena Nieto to stand up to Trump during his visit.
Two-time presidential election runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador exhorted Pena Nieto to lodge a complaint against the US government at the United Nations for "violation of human rights and racial discrimination."
He said Pena Nieto should go to Washington to deliver the complaint to Trump and to "fight for freedom, not beg for it."
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