MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto compared the language of Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump to that of dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in an interview published Monday, and said it has hurt U.S.-Mexico relations.
Asked about Trump, Peña Nieto complained to the Excelsior newspaper about “these strident expressions that seek to propose very simple solutions” and said that sort of language has led to “very fateful scenes in the history of humanity”
“That’s the way Mussolini arrived and the way Hitler arrived,” Peña Nieto said.
Peña Nieto until now had avoided direct comments on Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the two countries’ borders. Trump also has said Mexican immigrants bring crime and drugs to the U.S. and are “rapists.”
But as the New York businessman has built a lead in the GOP primary, current and former Mexican officials have begun to publicly express alarm. Former Presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon also have alluded to Hitler in describing Trump.
In the interview with Excelsior, Peña Nieto said he would work with whoever eventually wins this year’s U.S. presidential election and to maintain a climate “of mutual respect and joint agreements.”
In another interview published Monday, with the newspaper El Universal, the president said he would be “absolutely respectful” of the U.S. political process, but said, “It appears to me that (Trump’s comments) hurt the relationship we have sought with the United States.”
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This will just make Drumpf even more popular with the xenophobes.
I’m trying to figure out how Trump gets Mexico to pay up on any receipt.
I must be missing something.
The wall just got another ten feet taller.
I will grant what Trump has said is deeply offensive to Mexicans. But let’s not forget, he still has no official position in the US government. President Obama is still the man in charge and, as such, there really shouldn’t be a deterioration in the relationship. Now if Trump somehow gets elected…
I applaud his desire to maintain relations should Drumpf become president, but he’s missing one key element.
Drumpf isn’t going to have an attitude of “mutual respect”…so his efforts will be to naught.