Reveal A Call From Trump And Peña Nieto

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

In a call a few days before his inauguration, President Donald Trump had a favor to ask his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Peña Nieto: stop saying that Mexico will not pay for the wall.

This is clear from the transcript of the telephone conversation that Trump and Peña Nieto had on January 27, the full content of which was revealed this Thursday by The Washington Post, a leak that will undoubtedly make the tenant of the White House.

At one point in the call, the US president explains to Peña Nieto that he has been promising for a long time that Mexicans will pay for the wall and that, therefore, a sharp refusal by Los Pinos to his demand makes any type of negotiation impossible.

"If you say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I don't want to meet with you anymore because I can't accept it," says Trump. "You can't say that to the press."

The US president warns him that the media will put pressure on him if Mexico maintains an immovable position on this matter, so he suggests that he use another type of expression.

"We should both say 'we will solve it', 'we will solve it in a formula somehow', instead of you saying 'we will not pay it' and I say 'we will not pay it'," says Trump, who admits that the wall It is the least important of the bilateral relationship, but politically it is a promise of his that he must keep.

“I have to make Mexico pay for the wall, I have to do it. I have been talking about it for two years”, he highlights.

Peña Nieto acknowledges that Trump does not have much room for maneuver in this matter, a central point of his campaign, but reiterates that the Mexican Government will not finance the work. That is why it asks him to find "a creative way to overcome the obstacle" of the wall to advance on other issues on the agenda.

"This is an issue that goes beyond economics because it is an issue that concerns the dignity of Mexico and the national pride of my country," warns the Mexican president. "Let's stop talking about the wall."

This conversation took place after the Mexican president canceled his plan to travel to Washington to meet Trump after the American's insistence on his campaign promise. They finally saw each other last month at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

In addition to the wall, another crucial point that is addressed in the call is the intention of the new administration to impose tariffs on Mexican exports, which would blow up the free trade agreement between the two countries and Canada.

Trump reminds Peña Nieto that throughout his campaign, particularly in industrial states like Ohio and Michigan, he accused Mexico of taking jobs thanks to the "stupidity" of previous rulers.

He also accuses the drug cartels of the southern neighbor of "flooding" the United States with drugs, to which Peña Nieto replies that Mexico is also affected by the flow of weapons arriving from the north.

Despite the differences, both leaders reiterate their desire to maintain friendly and productive relationships. Trump even calls the Mexican president "friend" and even says that he speaks "very nice."