Mexico’s mounting unease and resentment over U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown was looming over a gathering of U.S. and Mexican leaders Thursday that the U.S. had hoped would project a strong future for relations between neighbours.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly were meeting with their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City before they were supposed to sit down with Mexican President Pena Nieto.
But a top Mexican official suggested the meeting with Mr. Pena Nieto, announced days in advance by the U.S., might not take place after all.
“It all depends on the agreements that they arrive at,” Mexico’s Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said on a morning news show. Even Mr. Trump, whose White House has insisted relations with Mexico are “phenomenal”, acknowledged he’d sent his top diplomat to Mexico on a “tough trip”.
“I want to say clearly and most emphatically that the Mexican government and the Mexican people have no reason to accept unilateral decisions imposed by one government on another,” said Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, Luis Videgaray. “We are not going to accept that, because we don’t have to.”
Mr. Videgaray added a cryptic but pointed warning that Mexico wouldn’t hesitate to challenge the U.S. move at the United Nations or other global venues.
