President Donald Trump on Thursday said that it would be better to cancel his scheduled meeting later this month with the Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto if latter continues with refusal to pay for a wall on the border.
According to CNN, Trump's pushback came after Mexican President Nieto said, "country will not pay for any wall."
In response to this, Trump tweeted they should just skip their planned January 31 meeting at the White House.
On Wednesday night, Pena Nieto had said he did not see a need to cancel his trip but reiterated that he wouldn't fund the wall.
"If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting," Trump tweeted and in an earlier tweet he noted the US's trade deficit with Mexico and what he said were the American job losses caused by NAFTA.
"Mexico does not believe in walls. I've said time again; Mexico will not pay for any wall," Pena Nieto said in a video statement posted to Twitter and translated by CNN from Spanish.
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The back-and-forth between the two leaders -- which began last year during the very first days of the Trump campaign when he called some Mexicans entering the US criminals and rapists and tensions lingered throughout the campaign. They escalated over the last 24 hours when Trump took executive action on Wednesday to begin the process of erecting a wall.
Earlier in the day, Trump signed two executive orders directing the construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border, boosting border patrol forces and increasing the number of immigration enforcement officers who carry out deportations.
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