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player ready...President Peña Nieto is regularly under fire for the things he says but this time it was what he didn’t say that got him in trouble.
When President Donald Trump was asked if he still wanted Mexico to pay for the wall that he hopes to construct to secure the border with Mexico, he answered with a smile: “Absolutely.” President Enrique Peña Nieto said nothing in response, provoking furied reactions on social media from his constituents.
The exchange happened today during the G20 summit, a meeting of world leaders from 20 major world economies, held in Hamburg, Germany. Later, Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray claimed that neither he nor Peña Nieto heard Trump’s comment, and added that it wasn’t a topic covered in the meeting.
Still, many Mexicans took to Twitter to share their discontent with Peña Nieto, some mentioning the president’s official account:
In March, the Trump administration asked Congress for $4.1 billion to begin construction on additional border fencing and walls, conceding that Mexico would not be paying for it, the LA Times reported.
“It’s coming out of the Treasury,” Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters when asked who would pay for the wall. So far, that request has met with a chilly reception on Capitol Hill.
Homeland Security Department officials have made clear that the administration does not intend to build a wall along the full length of the border, the way Trump often has described it. There are already about 600 miles of wall, fencing or other blocking constructions along the 2,000-mile border, which traverses rivers, desert and hilly terrain.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly testified earlier this year that there would be no wall “from sea to shining sea,” and officials have said the focus will be on additional border fortifications in or near urban areas, most likely more fences than walls.
Videgaray said most of the 40-minute meeting was dedicated to the landmark 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump initially panned as a terrible deal for the United States and threatened to pull out of, but now says he is willing to re-negotiate.
—With reporting from the LA Times