A rchive Date
[ 26-01-2017 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mexico ]
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[http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/mexicos-president-considering-scrapping-u-s-trip-over-trump-green-light-of-border-wall-official-says
Mexico’s president Enrique Pena Nieto cancels Washington trip after refusing to pay for Trump border wall
Margaret Talev and Nacha Cattan, Bloomberg News | January 26, 2017 1:23 PM ET
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto says he will not attend a planned Jan. 31 meeting with President Donald J. Trump, hours after Trump tweeted the meeting should be cancelled if Mexico won’t pay for a border wall.
Pena Nieto’s message on Twitter ended days of uncertainty about what he would do.
Pena Nieto, already under domestic pressure to stand up to Trump, in a televised address on Wednesday reiterated that Mexico will not pay for a border wall and left open whether he would carry out his planned visit. He also said Mexico demanded respect as an autonomous nation even as it negotiates new trade rules with the U.S. The Mexican president’s office declined to comment on Trump’s latest remarks.
Mexico’s peso erased its gain after Trump’s tweet, weakening 0.6 percent to 21.1947 per dollar in Thursday morning trading in New York.
The conflict over the border wall and trade adds to tensions in the U.S.-Mexico relationship, the outcome of which has domestic political implications and economic consequences in both countries.
Trump won office by making the central promises of his campaign construction of a wall along the 1,989-mile border at Mexico’s expense and halting the shift of manufacturing jobs. This week he signed a directive to set in motion the process of constructing the wall, though initially funded by U.S. taxpayers.
After he did that, opposition parties in Mexico called Pena Nieto to cancel his trip next week. “Hostile actions in Washington, such as the announcement of the construction of the wall, from our point of view, means that the U.S. doesn’t want any collaboration from our side,” Senator Armando Rios Piter of the Democratic Revolution Party said in a statement Wednesday.
Pena Nieto on Wednesday assured the Mexican public he’s willing to work with the U.S. but won’t pay for the wall. Televisa’s anchor Joaquin Lopez-Doriga said the trip was going forward as planned. After Trump’s tweets, Pena Nieto’s press office declined to comment on his plans for the summit.
Also at issue is the North America Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The U.S. and Mexico traded $531 billion worth of goods and services in 2015, nearly five times the trade between the U.S. and U.K. Mexico is the third largest trading partner with the U.S., following China and Canada.
But Trump has blamed the pact, which entered into force in 1994, for the loss of U.S. jobs. He’s vowed to renegotiate the agreement while also pressuring U.S. companies, including automakers General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., to scale back plans for building plants in Mexico.
“It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost,” Trump said in two tweets Thursday.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo have been in Washington since Tuesday meeting with Trump administration officials to discuss reopening negotiations on Nafta, which the new U.S. president has pledged to reshape.
Given just how much Mexico has benefited from the pact - its annual trade surplus with the U.S. has soared to over $60 billion - there’s the general sense that Videgaray has little leverage in the talks, that he will be mostly ceding ground to his American counterparts.
Mexican officials have been tight-lipped in their negotiating plans. In the past, they’ve signaled that they’re prepared to broaden the accord to include industries like internet commerce and energy.
© 2017 National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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