MEXICO CITY—Mexico’s president is “considering” canceling next week’s visit to Washington following President Donald Trump’s order to begin construction of a wall between the two countries, a senior official said Wednesday.
The decision to rethink the visit comes amid growing outrage in Mexico, and a sense among many that President Enrique Pena Nieto has been too weak in the face of Trump’s tough policy stance.
The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the administration “is considering” scrapping the Jan. 31 visit. “That’s what I can tell you.”
It was not clear when a final decision may be made.
Trump’s order came the same day Mexico’s foreign relations and economy secretaries arrived in Washington for talks with his administration, and its timing was seen by many in Mexico as a slap in the face.
Critics of Pena Nieto—whose approval ratings were just 12 percent in a recent survey, the lowest for any Mexican president in the polling era—have hammered him for his perceived weakness on Trump. Opposition politicians urged him Wednesday to call off the trip.
“The position is very clear,” said Ricardo Anaya Cortes, president of the conservative opposition National Action Party. “Either one cancels the meeting with Donald Trump, or one attends it to say publicly and with absolute firmness that Mexico rejects the wall and we will not pay a single cent for it.”
Trump has vowed that Mexico will pay for the wall, and also to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Pena Nieto and other officials have repeatedly said Mexico will not pay.
