President Donald Trump signaled Thursday that he may cancel a planned meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto after he refused, again, to pay for Trump’s proposed border wall.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed senior official, that Peña Nieto had reconsidered the meeting, planned for Jan. 31, after Trump said in an interview with ABC News that Mexico would pay for the wall.
Late on Wednesday night, Peña Nieto sent Trump a defiant message in a nationally-televised address, saying that “Mexico will not pay for any wall,” according to a CNN translation. He also said Mexican consulates across the United States would protect the rights of immigrants.
Un mensaje para todos los mexicanos: pic.twitter.com/EFcNh7fQtm
— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) January 26, 2017
Later, he wrote on Twitter that as a fully sovereign nation, Mexico demanded respect:
México ofrece y exige respeto, como la Nación plenamente soberana que somos.
— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) January 26, 2017
Trump appeared to respond on his own account Thursday, saying he would cancel the meeting if Mexico would not pay for the wall. He signed an executive order on Wednesday moving the process of building a border wall along.
The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017
of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017
Trump and Peña Nieto met in Mexico in September of last year. Afterwards, the Mexican president wrote that he made it clear to Trump at the meeting’s start that his country would never pay for a border wall.
Two things that should be added here. One is for the article, which should note that the Mexican president was under pressure to cancel his meeting with Trump first, so Trump is just reacting. The article indicates this is Trump taking action, rather than saving face.
The second thing is for Trump – if all these jobs are moving to Mexico, why do we need a wall to keep Mexicans from coming here for jobs? Or is the wall to stop the jobs from going south?
That’ll show him???
Trump can’t think even one move ahead. Must be fun to play chess with him. Of course he doesn’t have the patience or attention span to play.
If you did get him to sit down, he’d spend the time complaining about the size of his pieces.
“No puppet, no puppet, You’re the puppet!”
Notice the pattern.
He’s not lying about the size of trade deficit (58 million), but he is lying about it being a bad thing or even that the simple number tells the whole story.