Trump wants ‘better ties with Mexico’
We know there have been bumps in the road between our two countries but President Trump is determined to make the relationship between our peoples better and stronger
Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State
mexico city — US President Donald Trump wants to strengthen and improve ties with Mexico after “bumps in the road,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Mexico’s next leader on Friday, following the leftist’s landslide victory this month.
President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in turn, handed Pompeo a letter addressed to Trump with his plans to reset the relationship, focusing on trade, immigration, development and security, said Marcelo Ebrard, an aide to the incoming president.
Ebrard called the encounter “frank, respectful, and cordial.”
The visit by Pompeo and other top US officials was, Pompeo said, intended to signal the “deep importance” Trump gives to what has been an increasingly strained bilateral relationship.
Trump has irked Mexico with demands that it pay for a border wall and his comments that it does nothing to slow illegal immigration. He has also pushed to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) to favour the United States.
“We know there have been bumps in the road between our two countries but President Trump is determined to make the relationship between our peoples better and stronger,” Pompeo said at the start of the 50-minute meeting with Lopez Obrador, who will take office on December 1.
Senior officials including Jared Kushner, Trump’s adviser and sonin-law, were in the delegation led by Pompeo, which earlier met outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray.
Since Trump’s election, Videgaray in particular has sought to avoid the collapse of the trillion-dollar Nafta trade deal, cultivating close contact with the White House through Kushner and supporting closer diplomatic and security ties, US and Mexican officials say.
Previous attempts by officials to pour oil on the waters of an increasingly turbulent bilateral relationship have been undone by intemperate tweets from the US president himself.
Lopez Obrador has said that he wants good relations with the United States. Despite ideological differences with Trump, the two men share nationalist and populist leanings.
But the president-elect’s plans to shake up Mexico’s war on drug cartels, including by reducing security cooperation with the United States, could put him on a collision course with Trump.