Mexican President Cancels Trip to US as Tensions Over Border Wall Rise

The standoff between President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto continued with some pretty stern tweets Thursday. Suggested Reading Our Fave Black Christmas TV Shows and Movies to Stream for the Holidays Michelle Obama On How That Famous 2008 New Yorker ‘Fist Bump’ Magazine Cover Changed Everything A Peek at Mariah Carey’s Fly…

The standoff between President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto continued with some pretty stern tweets Thursday.

Video will return here when scrolled back into view
Lupita Nyong’o Celebrates 10 Years After Oscar Win and Her New Film: The Wild Robot

“If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Trump tweeted early Thursday, CNN reports. Peña Nieto had been scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House next week, according to USA Today.

Peña Nieto then announced Thursday that the meeting would, in fact, be canceled, according to CNN. “This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the POTUS,” Peña Nieto tweeted.

White House press secretary Sean “Spicy Facts” Spicer noted, “We’ll look for a date to schedule something in the future. We will keep the lines of communication open,” according to CNN.

As late as Wednesday, Peña Nieto had planned to meet with Trump but added that he had no plans to have his country pay for a border wall, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday would cost $12 billion to $15 billion.

“President Trump’s insistence that Mexico will pay for the wall has once again just been proven as delusional fiction by the Mexican president,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN. “The wall is a multibillion-dollar boondoggle in the making, and Republicans should be embarrassed about their brazen hypocrisy in enabling it.”

“Mexico does not believe in walls. I’ve said time again: Mexico will not pay for any wall,” Peña Nieto said in a video statement posted to Twitter, according to CNN.

Read more at CNN and USA Today.

Straight From The Root

Sign up for our free daily newsletter.