Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto beat President Trump to the punch Thursday — telling the White House that he has canceled his trip to Washington because of Trump’s insistence on building a border wall.
The Mexican president scrapped his planned Jan. 31 sit-down with Trump after the president tweeted he should stay home if he continued to refuse to foot the bill for his signature campaign pledge.
“This morning we told the White House we won’t attend next Tuesday’s meeting with @POTUS,” Peña Nieto wrote on Twitter in a series of posts. “Mexico reiterates its will to work with the US to achieve agreements for both of us.”
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he hoped the meeting can be rescheduled.
“We will look for a date to schedule something in the future,” Spicer told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We will keep the lines of communication open.”
Later, Trump said cancelling the meeting was a mutual decision.
“The president of Mexico and myself have agreed to cancel our planned meeting scheduled for next week,” Trump told Republicans at a GOP retreat in Philadelphia.
“Unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless, and I want to go a different route. “
Trump earlier threatened to table the meeting because Peña Nieto announced Mexico would not pay for the controversial wall as tensions between the two leaders came to a head over social media.
“The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Trump said in two tweets Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, Congress will push through funding for the US-Mexico border wall — which will cost between $12 billion to $15 billion, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell revealed Thursday.
McConnell was mum on specifically how the key President Trump campaign promise would be paid for, but House Speaker Paul Ryan said they’ll “wait and see” whether the hefty price tag would be offset with budget cuts elsewhere.
“As far as the offset, we are going to wait and see from the Administration what their supplemental [budget bill] looks like,” Ryan said at a press conference with McConnell at a GOP conference in Philadelphia. “…But the point is, we are going to finance the Secure Fence Act, which is the construction of the physical barrier on the border.”
“We are moving ahead ….with a roughly $12-15 billion [plan],” McConnell added. “We intend to address the wall issue ourselves and the president can deal with his relations with other countries.”
Republicans traditionally have been sticklers for insisting new spending being offset by cuts to other programs in the budget, but the top two GOP leaders declined to make such commitments aside for saying the GOP leadership remains committed keeping within its budgetary means as “fiscal conservatives.”
In an interview with ABC News that aired Wednesday, Trump said border all payment “will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico” and said expects full reimbursement: “100 percent.”
Mexican president quickly hit back and said: “Mexico won’t pay for any wall.”
Trump acknowledged repayment could be “complicated” and in a Tweet Thursday hinted it could be addressed by renegotiating the “one-sided” trade deal of NAFTA.
Reviewing the President Clinton-era trade deal was to be discussed during the visit.

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