STONE WALL
Trump gets re$istance in Mexico Stands firm on illegals’ deportation
Donald Trump had a cordial meeting in Mexico yesterday with President Enrique Peña Nieto, but el presidente “made it clear Mexico will not pay for the [border] wall.” Undeterred, Trump hours later repeated his vow to build the wall and to deport millions of illegal aliens, saying, “Call it whatever the hell you want. They’re gone.”
Donald Trump took his plan for a border wall to the doorstep of Mexico’s president Wednesday — only to be told there’s no way Mexico would pay for it.
“At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall,” President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted soon after a private meeting and joint press conference with Trump.
But later Wednesday, the GOP nominee doubled down on his promise to make Mexico pay during his long-awaited speech on immigration, in which he showed no signs of softening his positions as some had expected.
“We will build a great wall along the southern border, and Mexico will pay for the wall, 100 percent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for it,” he thundered.
The wall, he said, would be “impenetrable, tall, powerful, beautiful,” and would include high-tech sensors to sniff out tunnels.
When asked in Mexico if he and Peña Nieto discussed who would pay for it, he declared, “We discussed the wall. We didn’t discuss who pays for the wall.”
“That’ll be for a later date,” said Trump.
But Peña Nieto and his spokesman both said the Manhattan mogul must have been dreaming.
“What the president said is that Mexico, as he has said on several occasions . . . will not pay for that wall,” spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told Reuters.
Trump and the Mexican leader met behind closed doors and emerged speaking about their “shared objective” to boost the economies of both nations.
Despite the dispute over the wall, Trump described the meeting as “a very substantive, direct and constructive exchange of ideas.”
“I was straightforward in presenting my views about the impacts of current trade and immigration policies on the United States,” Trump said later, assuring his supporters that he was sticking to his campaign pledge.
Trump said the pair discussed “five shared goals,” and that No. 1 was ending illegal immigration.
He said the two also talked about securing the border, renegotiating NAFTA, preserving manufacturing jobs in the hemisphere and putting Mexico’s ultra-violent drug cartels out of business.
“No one wins in either country when human smugglers and drug traffickers prey on people, when cartels commit acts of violence,” Trump said.
He argued that NAFTA had helped Mexico more than the US, a point the Mexican president disputed, citing statistics from the US Chamber of Commerce showing that both countries benefited from the 1994 trade deal.
During the press conference, Trump heaped praise on the Mexican people — even though he previously called many who have entered the United States illegally murderers and rapists.
Peña Nieto — whose domestic approval ratings are in the toilet and who was widely slammed for hosting The Donald — also struck a conciliatory tone, noting that he had invited both Trump and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
John Podesta, a spokesman for Clinton, said Trump lied when he claimed the wall wasn’t discussed.
In the biggest surprise yet of this unprecedented election year, Donald Trump on Wednesday shared a stage with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto — and came off plenty presidential. And he followed up with a policy address in Arizona that neatly trimmed the rough edges off his immigration policies.
In Mexico City, the two men seemed to get along, despite Trump’s past incendiary rhetoric. Both described their private meeting as “warm,” for all their disagreements. And Peña Nieto didn’t balk when the New Yorker called him a “friend.”
It helped, of course, that Trump wisely chose to emphasize issues that both nations share. The American deftly pivoted on trade, jobs and drugs — from slamming Mexico for its role in US problems on all fronts, to suggesting both countries could work together to solve joint challenges.
Will it help him? Wait to see the polls — but it couldn’t possibly hurt, and it certainly softened the candidate’s image exactly where he’s long seemed too harsh.
Hand it to Trump: Accepting Peña Nieto’s invitation and heading down to Mexico City within 24 hours was a bold and risky move.
His host could have sandbagged him simply by dwelling on their disagreements and Trump’s past words during the joint press conference. Instead, he merely tweeted his we-won’t-pay-for-the-wall comments later.
Trump followed up with a major immigration address in Phoenix — still plenty tough, but focused on fixing obvious, gaping flaws in current enforcement. Conspicuously missing was his past call for immediate deportation of all illegals in the country — even as the concluding testimony of “Angel Moms” put a multicultural human face on his push for tougher policies. All in all, a winning day for Trump. It was higher-risk for Peña Nieto, who plainly issued his simultaneous invitations to Trump and Hillary Clinton as an exercise in statesmanship. It’s hardly fault that Clinton turned him down, or that Trump moved to seize the chance more rapidly than any conventional politician ever would.
The Mexican leader has to worry that he’s just landed on the Clintons’ enemies list for thowing Trump a lifeline rival.
If Hillary holds on to win Nov. 8, Peña Nieto should probably write a fat check to the Clinton Foundation.