Mexican President Told Trump Mexico Won’t Pay For Border Wall
Although Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto never discussed whether Mexico would pay for the wall, Pena said they did — and that Mexico won’t pay.
“At the beginning of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall,” Pena tweeted.
But after the meeting, Trump told reporters that the border wall proposal never came up for discussion during his meeting with Pena.
“We didn’t discuss payment of the wall,” Trump said, adding that the topic would come up “at a later date,” reported the Los Angeles Times.
Trump was criticized for appearing not to have the same bombast about forcing Mexico to pay for a border wall as he has on the campaign trail.
“This guy comes out barking like a pit bull, goes down to Mexico and turns into a Chihuahua,” said former Los Angeles mayor turned surrogate for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Antonio Villaraigosa, according to the Boston Herald.
Although border barriers, including fences and walls, already exist along much of the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump plans to expand those barriers to cover the entire border. Cost estimates for a border wall vary, but are generally in the $15 billion to $25 billion range, according to CNBC.
And on Trump’s campaign website, the self-described expert negotiator said he would compel the Mexican government to foot the bill by putting heavy restrictions on the approximately $24 billion in remittances that get sent from the U.S. to Mexico, much of it coming from undocumented workers sending money back home to their families. The idea is that the Mexican government needs the remittances so bad, they’ll pay a one-time fee of $5 to $10 billion to keep the remittances coming.
“The majority of that amount comes from illegal aliens,” Trump’s campaign website says. “It serves as de facto welfare for poor families in Mexico. There is no significant social safety net provided by the state in Mexico.”
Sources: Los Angeles Times, Enrique Pena Nieto/Twitter, Boston Herald, DonaldJTrump.com / Photo credit: U.S. Department of Defense via pingnews.com/Flickr