U.S. President Donald Trump meets Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto during the their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. Reuters/Carlos Barria
• Mexico's president will reportedly no longer visit the White House after he argued with President Donald Trump over his long-promised border wall.
• Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto attempted to persuade Trump to publicly admit that Mexico won't pay for the border wall.
• Trump promised repeatedly during his 2016 presidential campaign that he would force Mexico to pay for it.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto reportedly backed out of plans to visit the White House after a heated argument with President Donald Trump this week over his long-promised wall along the US-Mexico border.

Trump "lost his temper" during a nearly hour-long phone call on February 20, one Mexican official told The Washington Post. Peña Nieto had tried to persuade Trump to publicly acknowledge that Mexico will refuse to pay for the border wall, as Trump repeatedly vowed during his presidential campaign.

US officials told The Post that Trump was frustrated and exasperated by the call, as Trump believed it was unfair to expect him to renege on one of his favorite campaign refrains.

A White House readout of the call made no mention of the border wall argument, instead saying that Trump and Peña Nieto exchanged condolences over recent tragedies in each leader's country — a mass shooting in Florida and a helicopter accident in Oaxaca.

Prototypes for U.S. President Donald Trump's border wall with Mexico are seen behind the current border fence in this picture taken from the Mexican side of the border in Tijuana, Mexico, January 27, 2018. Reuters/Jorge Duenes "President Trump underscored his commitment to expanding cooperation between the United States and Mexico on security, trade, and immigration," the readout added.

The call marks the second time in a little more than a year that Peña Nieto and Trump have cancelled a planned meeting after an angry stand-off on the border wall.

In a January 2017 phone call, Trump told Peña Nieto he didn't want to meet with him because he "cannot live" with Peña Nieto publicly saying that Mexico wouldn't pay for the wall.

Trump urged Peña Nieto to say, "We will work it out" if either man was asked about payments for the border wall, according to a transcript obtained by The Washington Post last August.

"The fact is we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall — I have to," Trump said. "I have been talking about it for a two-year period, and the reason I say they are going to pay for the wall is because Mexico has made a fortune out of the stupidity of US trade representatives."

The leaders' latest spat comes as Mexico heads into a presidential election later this year, prompting Peña Nieto to take a tough stance on Trump's border wall and avoid appearing to acquiesce to his demands, which Mexicans overwhelmingly view as humiliating and offensive. </s> (CNN) Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has called off an official trip to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump after a tense phone call brought the two leaders to a policy-driven standstill.

Peña Nieto was tentatively planning the trip for March, a White House official said, but the official confirmed to CNN that the trip was put on hold following the phone call, which took place on February 20.

According to The Washington Post, which first reported the cancellation , officials from both countries told the paper that Peña Nieto "called off the plan after Trump would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico's position that it would not fund construction of a border wall."

A White House official told CNN that any meeting would be awkward and counterproductive given Trump's vow that Mexico would pay for the wall.

The official said the call was "less hostile" than the one that occurred between the two leaders a year ago, but "no more productive" than that call either.

Read More </s> The president of Mexico halted upcoming plans to visit the White House after a reportedly tense phone conversation with President Donald Trump, according to the Washington Post.

U.S. and Mexican officials told the Post that President Enrique Peña Nieto called off his visit to Washington D.C. after Trump refused his request to publicly affirm Mexico’s ongoing stance that the country will not pay for a border wall between the two countries during a phone call on Tuesday.

President Peña Nieto has long maintained that Mexico will not pay for Trump’s plans to fortify the border with a wall, as the country finds the gesture offensive.

The officials who were familiar with the call spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity because the 50-minute call was confidential.

A White House official confirmed with CNN that Peña Nieto’s meeting with Trump was tentatively scheduled for March, but was placed on hold after their conversation.

A three-sentence White House readout of the phone call did not specifically mention Trump’s multibillion-dollar border wall, but it did note that the president “underscored his commitment to expanding cooperation between the United States and Mexico on security, trade, and immigration.”

According to the Washington Post, Peña Nieto and Trump spent a “considerable portion” of the phone call discussing the border wall.

A Mexican official told the paper that Trump “lost his temper” during Tuesday’s conversation. U.S. officials said Trump was frustrated and exasperated because he thought Peña Nieto was being unreasonable for expecting him to walk back plans for his controversial campaign promise, according to the Post.

Leaked transcripts of a Jan. 27, 2017, phone call between the two leaders reportedly show Trump insisting that his wall was “the least important thing” to talk about while adding that “politically [it] might be the most important.”

During the conversation, both leaders agreed that talking about the wall was unproductive, but when Peña Nieto said, “Mexico cannot pay for that wall,” Trump responded: “You cannot say that to the press.”

“The press is going to go with that, and I cannot live with that,” Trump told Peña Nieto, according to the transcripts. “You cannot say that to the press because I cannot negotiate under those circumstances.”

A White House official told CNN that Tuesday’s call was “less hostile” than last year’s conversation, but not any more productive. </s> Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has reportedly scrapped his plans to visit the White House after a contentious call with President Trump Donald John TrumpAccuser says Trump should be afraid of the truth Woman behind pro-Trump Facebook page denies being influenced by Russians Shulkin says he has White House approval to root out 'subversion' at VA MORE discussing his proposed border wall.

U.S. and Mexican officials familiar with the call told The Washington Post that Peña Nieto and Trump reached an impasse while discussing the wall. Peña Nieto reportedly asked Trump to publicly affirm Mexico’s stance that it will not pay for the wall, but Trump refused to cave.

A Mexican official told the paper that Trump “lost his temper” during the 50-minute call. U.S. officials said that Trump was “exasperated” and “frustrated” because he thought Peña Nieto’s expectation was unreasonable, according to the Post.

Peña Nieto’s visit was not yet confirmed, but was expected to take place sometime in the coming weeks. The Mexican president is facing a presidential election in July.

The border wall, one of Trump’s most divisive campaign promises, has been a source of contention between the two nations. Peña Nieto canceled a planned meeting with Trump in January 2017 due to conflict with Trump over the North American Free Trade Agreement and the border wall.

Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States, told The Washington Post that Trump has “painted” the relationship between the two countries “into a corner” with his insistence that Mexico would pay for the wall.

“Even from the get-go, the idea of Mexico paying for the wall was never going to fly,” Sarukhan said. “[Trump’s] relationship with Mexico isn’t strategically driven. It’s not even business; it’s personal, driven by motivations and triggers, and that’s a huge problem. It could end up with the U.S. asking itself, ‘Who lost Mexico?’ ”

Trump said repeatedly during the campaign that Mexico would foot the bill for the border wall expansion. And during a phone call in August, Trump pleaded with Peña Nieto to not say publicly that his government would not pay for the wall, according to leaked transcripts.

“If you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that,” Trump said at the time.

Trump’s proposed framework for immigration legislation includes $25 billion in funding for the wall. </s> Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto this week again postponed meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. over Trump’s public insistence that Mexico will pay for his proposed border wall, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

The Post, citing unnamed U.S. and Mexican officials, said Peña Nieto had intended to come to Washington, D.C. in February or March to meet Trump in America for the first time since the Trump’s inauguration. The paper noted the pair met during the G20 summit in Germany in July of last year (pictured above).

But, the sources said, the plans were called off after Trump “would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position” on the border wall — namely, that Mexico isn’t paying for it — during a phone call with Peña Nieto.

An unnamed Mexican official said Trump “lost his temper” over the dispute, the Post reported. Unnamed U.S. officials said Trump was frustrated and exasperated by the exchange.

An unnamed Mexican official added that Peña Nieto’s team was worried Trump would answer a question about funding the border wall during a press conference.

The same stalemate occurred just over a year ago, when Peña Nieto announced he would not be going to Washington to meet Trump as planned. Trump tweeted at the time: “If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.”

Soon after, the Washington Post published the transcript of a call between the two leaders in which Trump said that the issue of who was actually paying for a border wall “is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about.” </s> Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has scrapped an upcoming meeting with President Donald Trump in the wake of fiery back-and-forth over which nation will pay for a border wall between the two nations.

"This morning we informed the White House that I will not attend the business meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the @POTUS," Nieto tweeted.

Trump tweeted earlier Thursday that if Mexico refuses to pay for the wall it might be best to scrap their upcoming meeting.

Watch: Nieto tells Trump 'we do not believe in walls'

"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...," Trump tweeted. "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting."

The deep divide over which country will fund Trump's promised wall along the U.S.-Mexican border — along with the White House's pledge to withhold federal funding from so-called "sanctuary cities" — raises the stakes in the talks.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox in a video posted on Twitter implored Trump to rethink his position.

"Paisanos, @realDonaldTrump's reaction is one of fear," Fox wrote. "He's seen that México stands together and it's strong. Don't mess with us!"

A day earlier Trump, as he was unveiling his executive orders for ramped up immigration arrests and deportation and the border wall, threw in some praise for Mexico and Mexicans and declaring that the crisis on the border was due to a surge in Central Americans. During the presidential campaign, Trump's inflammatory rhetoric included calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and accusing them of "bringing crime."

But Trump has also been threatening to reopen NAFTA, the trade agreement between Mexico, Canada and the U.S., to get a "better deal." He made that along with other trade deals the culprit for manufacturing job losses and other economic ills in the U.S.

Nieto had expressed interest in exploring the renegotiation of the 1994 agreement that predates advances in social media, telecommunications and other industries, to modernize it.

But facing some pressure at home and clearly disliking the orders from Trump, Nieto said in Spanish in a video posted on social media that Trump's wall was dividing the two nations.

He didn't explicitly say he was rethinking his visit to the U.S. next week, but said he would be speaking with elected officials and Mexico Cabinet members about the meeting.

Jon Farela, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, a businees border development group, spent this week, speaking and visiting with members of Congress to provide evidence of how NAFTA has benefited both counties and areas for improvement.

"The quickest and surest way to destabilize the border is to remove jobs and hope because people will always find ways to provide for their families," said Farela, a conservative Republican and former New Mexico secretary of economic development who narrowly lost a congressional race in Albuquerque. </s> 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.

In a nationally televised speech late Wednesday, President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned the U.S. decision and repeated that Mexico would not pay for the wall despite Trump's avowals that it would.

"I regret and reject the decision of the U.S. to build the wall," he said. "I have said time and again, Mexico will not pay for any wall."

Pena Nieto did not directly mention whether he would make the trip to Washington on Jan. 31, but said he would await reports from the high-level team of Mexican officials currently meeting with Trump administration officials in Washington.

"Based on the final report from the Mexican officials who are in Washington right now ... I will make decisions about what to do next," he said.

After talking tough about the wall, he held out an olive branch, saying "Mexico re-affirms its friendship with the people of the United States, and its willingness to reach agreements with its government."

The decision to possibly rethink the visit comes amid growing outrage in Mexico, and a sense among many that Pena Nieto has been too weak in the face of Trump's tough policy stance.

The senior 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 Pena Nieto's visit to the U.S. "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, 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 also promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson argued that Pena Nieto should keep the meeting as scheduled, saying Mexico should exhaust all possibilities for negotiating to minimize damage. He said Pena Nieto should try to reach an agreement that's enough to let Trump claim victory and then move on to another foil.

"Trump is more interested in boasting of an immediate success than an ambitious result. He is interested in appearances," Zepeda said.

The U.S. president has also promised to step up deportations. He launched his campaign with remarks calling immigrants crossing in illegally from Mexico criminals, drug dealers and "rapists." Trump added that "some" were presumably good people, but the comments nonetheless deeply offended many Mexicans.

Pena Nieto was roundly criticized after inviting candidate Trump to Mexico City last August and disappointed many of his countrymen by not publicly confronting Trump on the wall.

On Tuesday, ahead of their trip to Washington, the economy and foreign relations secretaries suggested that Mexico could leave NAFTA if negotiations with Washington are unsatisfactory - though that would not be the first choice.

Already Mexico is feeling the effects of the new tone from Washington. The Mexican peso has sharply devalued since Trump was elected, and several high-profile business ventures have been canceled amid threats to impose a border tax on goods made in Mexico and exported to the United States.

Copyright 2017 FOX 11 Los Angeles : Download our mobile app for breaking news alerts or to watch FOX 11 News | Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Be a citizen journalist for FOX 11 and get paid – download the Fresco News App today. </s> President Trump has refused to back down on his promise to make Mexico pay for a wall along the United States-Mexico border, prompting a White House trip by Mexican President Peña Nieto to be canceled.

Trump and Nieto decided to call off the planned visit in Washington, DC, after a phone conversation about the proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall and how it would be paid for — in one way or another — by Mexico.

Tentative plans for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to make his first visit to the White House to meet with President Trump were scuttled this week after a testy call between the two leaders ended in an impasse over Trump’s promised border wall, according to U.S. and Mexican officials. Peña Nieto was eyeing an official trip to Washington this month or in early March, but both countries agreed to call off the plan after Trump would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position that it would not fund construction of a border wall that the Mexican people widely consider offensive, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential conversation.

Since 2015, Trump has promised Americans that a border wall — currently held up in the prototype stage — would be built along the southern border to stop illegal immigration and cartel-driven drug flow into the country.

Mexico, Trump has committed, will somehow end up paying for the border wall, whether that comes in the form of taxing remittances to have illegal aliens from Mexico actually pay for the wall or tariffs on imported goods from Mexico.

Trump’s refusal to back down to Mexico on the border wall has been ongoing during his time as president. Last year, he told Nieto that he would be walking away from a deal with the country unless it included Mexico paying for the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The fact is, we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall,” Trump told Peña Nieto, according to a transcript of the call. “I have to. I have been talking about it for a two-year period.”

“If you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore, because I cannot live with that,” Trump continued.

Trump’s wall along the southern border is only expected to cost about $18 billion, a fraction of what American taxpayers have been paying for illegal immigration.

For example, American taxpayers are forced to pay about $116 billion annually for the cost of the estimated 12 to 30 million illegal aliens living across the U.S., as Breitbart News reported. The cost of illegal immigration to American taxpayers has risen by $3 billion since 2013. </s> (CNN) -- Mexico's top diplomat has said the suggestion that his government would pay for President Donald Trump's planned border wall was "totally unacceptable," leading to the cancellation of the two countries' leaders' first meeting.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told journalists Thursday that Mexico respected the US' prerogative to protect its borders but that Mexico "simply cannot accept the concept of a neighbor paying for your wall."

Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto canceled a meeting with Trump that had been set for next week after renewed tensions erupted over Trump's plan to build a wall on the border.

"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 Thursday.

Trump said that the two leaders had "agreed" to cancel the meeting at a meeting of Republican strategists 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," he said in prepared remarks. "We have no choice."

Earlier Thursday morning, Trump had tweeted that it would be better to skip the meeting if his Mexican counterpart continued to insist Mexico would not pay for the wall.

Videgaray insisted that his ministry would take a cooperative stance toward Mexico's northern neighbor and largest trading partner -- the World Bank reports over 80 percent of its exports flow north -- but that the disagreement over funding for the wall was about Mexico's "dignity and our pride."

Videgaray said he was in a meeting with White House staff setting out protocols and logistics for Peña Nieto's visit when he heard about Trump's tweet.

"We then asked for a break in the meeting and I quickly called (Peña Nieto). He had already seen it, through social media, and the President gave me instructions to communicate in a cordial and respectful manner to the White House that due to this statement it was inviable to have the meeting."

He said that his government's stance over the wall was "not a negotiating strategy."

"This goes way beyond any trade issue, investment, or other things that we are more than willing to negotiate and talk about and make better."

He said that the Mexican government was confident that it could "get to great deals with President Trump."

Videgaray, known to have a good relationship with Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Mexican senators Tuesday ahead of his first face-to-face diplomatic meeting with the Trump administration in Washington.

He added that Mexico will not react on Trump's 20% tax proposal until "we see action."

"Let's not put too much energy or attention into something that will be speculation. I can tell you that if you tax exports from Mexico into the US, you're going to make things ranging from avocados, to appliances to flat screen TVs more expensive and that is going to be paid by the American consumer."

"Let's not devote too much time onto something that is speculation."
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancels a scheduled trip to the United States after a heated phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, in which Trump refused to publicly back down from his pledge of having Mexico pay for the U.S.–Mexico border wall.