Mexican official resigns in wake of Trump visit
Political analysts blame aide for Peña Nieto fiasco
One of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s closest advisers resigns in a move linked to the unpopular decision to invite Donald Trump to visit Mexico.
MEXICO CITY — One of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s closest advisers and confidants, Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray, has resigned in a move seen as linked to the unpopular decision to invite Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to visit Mexico.
Peña Nieto has taken responsibility for inviting Trump, but a former government official familiar with the workings of the administration said Videgaray would have played a preponderant role in the decision.
Newspaper columnists in Mexico have reported that Videgaray was behind last week’s visit, after which Peña Nieto was widely criticized for not being forceful enough in rejecting Trump’s proposals and comments about Mexico.
Videgaray “was the architect” of Trump’s visit, because he was the adviser that Peña Nieto had “the most reliance on, and was closest to,” said columnist and political analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio.
Peña Nieto thanked Videgaray for leading financial reforms during a ceremony at which the president announced he was accepting the resignation. Former finance secretary Jose Antonio Meade will replace Videgaray. Luis Enrique Miranda Nava will take over the social development post.
In comments to local media, Meade defended the president’s meeting with Trump, saying it had lowered the risk of confrontations and helped moderate some of Trump’s policy proposals.
But Peña Nieto was ridiculed for not confronting Trump more directly during the visit about him calling migrants from Mexico criminals, drug-runners and “rapists” and promising to build a border wall and force Mexico to pay for it.
The wall proposal has been criticized widely and fiercely in Mexico.
Speaking at a town hall late Thursday where he fielded questions from young people, Peña Nieto sought to defend the decision to invite Trump to visit.
He said the easier path would have been to “cross my arms” and do nothing in response to Trump’s “affronts, insults and humiliations,” but he believed it necessary to open a “space for dialogue” to stress the importance of the U.S.Mexico relationship.