Nieto: Mexico will push back on U.S. trade threats

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has warned that Mexico will push back if U.S. Presidentelect Donald Trump attacks Mexico on trade or other fronts — using its cooperation on crucial issues such as immigration and security as leverage.

While he didn’t mention Trump by name, much of Pena Nieto’s address to a gathering of Mexican ambassadors on Wednesday was directed at the incoming U.S. president, who in a news conference earlier in the day had vowed yet again to tax imports from Mexico and to force Mexico to pay for construction of a massive border wall.

Trump’s threats helped send the Mexican peso plummeting to a record low Wednesday, when it briefly fell below 22 per U.S. dollar.

In his speech, Pena Nieto said conversations with the U.S. about taxes or trade deals would also include conversations about U.S.-Mexico collaboration on immigration and security.

In recent years, Mexico has stepped up its presence along its southern border in an effort to help the U.S. slow immigration from Central America and other parts of the world. Between October 2014 and May 2015, for example, Mexican authorities detained more Central American migrants than the U.S. Border Patrol.

Mexico and the U.S. also collaborate closely on security issues, from intelligence sharing between law enforcement agencies to the Merida Initiative, a bilateral partnership forged in 2007 to help reduce the power of drug trafficking in Mexico. Since then, the U.S. has contributed more than $2 billion to Mexico in police training and cash for better security equipment.

The effectiveness of using security and immigration as bargaining chips is questionable, experts say, in part because U.S. funding for security efforts is in Mexico’s interest.

Mexico’s vows to do business with countries other than the U.S. in response to Trump’s economic threats, however, would ultimately benefit Mexico, economists say.