Dispute Over Border Wall Plunges U.S. into Crisis with Mexico, as Mexican President Scraps White House Visit
Dispute Over Border Wall Plunges U.S. into Crisis with Mexico, as Mexican President Scraps White House Visit
“It has taken a generation to build [the U.S.-Mexico] relationship. Now it has taken a new direction. This is a new day,” says AS/COA’s Eric Farnsworth.
One of America’s most important strategic relationships plunged to a new low Thursday when an escalating dispute over a proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border prompted Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to cancel a planned visit to the White House.
President Trump has been in office barely a week, but his increasingly bitter feud with Mexico over who would pay for the new wall has left Mexican officials furious and now threatens to ignite a trade war between the two crucial allies.
Peña Nieto had been scheduled next week to be one of the first world leaders to meet with Trump. But a day after Trump issued orders to build a new wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, Peña Nieto on Thursday abruptly canceled the Jan. 31 visit....
The diplomats worry, however, that such favorable trends could be reversed under Trump. Nowhere is that more important than in Mexico.
“It has taken a generation to build the relationship,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, an advocacy group in Washington. “Now it has taken a new direction. This is a new day.”
Relative prosperity and stability in Latin America has been predicated in large part on increased integration and free trade. Trump seems intent on rolling that back. He already removed the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty, of which Mexico too is a signatory, and has announced renegotiation of NAFTA. Peña Nieto’s visit was meant to be a first step in that process….
