Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto says he will not attend a planned Jan. 31 meeting with President Donald J. Trump, hours after Trump tweeted the meeting should be canceled if Mexico won't pay for a border wall.Pena Nieto's message on Twitter ended days of uncertainty about what he would do. </s> 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> (MEXICO CITY) — A senior government official says 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.

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, said the administration "is considering" scrapping the Jan. 31 visit. "That's what I can tell you." </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> (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> 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> MEXICO CITY — When Donald J. Trump called some Mexican immigrants rapists, threatened to deport millions of them and promised to build a wall to keep others out, Mexican officials counseled caution, saying it was merely bluster from an unlikely candidate who, if elected, would never follow through.

Now, after just five days in office, President Trump is looking a lot like Candidate Trump — and the Mexicans are furious.

With just a few strokes of the pen on Wednesday, the new American president signed an executive order to beef up the nation’s deportation force and start construction on a new wall between the nations. Adding to the perceived insult was the timing of the order: It came on the first day of talks between top Mexican officials and their counterparts in Washington, and just days before a meeting between the two countries’ presidents.

The action was enough to prompt President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico to consider scrapping his plans to visit the White House on Tuesday, according to Mexican officials. In a video message delivered over Twitter on Wednesday night, Mr. Peña Nieto did not address whether he would cancel the meeting, saying only that future steps would be taken in consultation with the country’s lawmakers. Instead, he reiterated his commitment to protect the interests of Mexico and the Mexican people, and chided the move in Washington to continue with the wall. </s> - Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Thursday he will not attend a planned Jan. 31 meeting with President Donald J. Trump, hours after Trump tweeted that the meeting should be canceled if Mexico won't pay for a border wall.

Pena Nieto's message on Twitter ended days of uncertainty about how he would respond to Trump's aggressive stance toward the country, and illustrated the challenges world leaders are likely to face in dealing with Trump's voluble, Twitter-based diplomacy.

"This morning we have informed the White House I will not attend the working meeting planned for next Tuesday," Pena Nieto tweeted.

"Mexico reaffirms its willingness to work with the United States to reach agreements that benefit both nations," he added.

In Washington, White House press secretary Sean Spicer responded to the Mexican president's announcement, saying: "We'll look for a date to schedule something in the future. We will keep the lines of communication open."

Earlier Thursday, Trump had tweeted that "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting" in Washington D.C.

Trump said Wednesday he would start building a U.S.-Mexico border wall and has vowed to make Mexico pay for it. Mexico opposes the wall and has repeatedly said it won't pay.

Officials had said Mexico was "considering" canceling after the border wall announcement, but Trump appeared to beat Mexico to the punch in that game of brinkmanship.

Former foreign relations secretary Jorge Castaneda told local media that after Trump's tweet, "Pena Nieto has no other choice but to say `I'm not going."'

Trump's unpredictable style appeared to catch Mexico's normally quiet and cautious diplomacy off guard.

"I think that, in general, diplomacy is not conducted via Twitter," Finance Secretary Jose Antonio Meade told Radio Formula.

Mexico's best-known opposition politician, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, tweeted that "in the face of Trump's latest outburst, don't go to the meeting, and submit an urgent complaint to the U.N. for human rights violations." </s> Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Thursday canceled a meeting with US President Donald Trump that had been set for Tuesday after renewed tensions 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.

Earlier Thursday morning, Trump had tweeted that it would be better to skip the meeting if Peña Nieto continued to insist Mexico would not pay for the wall, which he had again said as recently as Wednesday evening.

Trump’s pushback came after Peña Nieto said — again — on Wednesday that his country “will not pay for any wall,” Trump tweeted that they should just skip their planned meeting at the White House.

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

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.

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.

“Mexico does not believe in walls. I’ve said time again; Mexico will not pay for any wall,” he said in a video statement posted to Twitter and translated by CNN from Spanish.

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.

The President announced the move while a high-level Mexican delegation was visiting the White House — the first foreign representatives to visit since Trump took office — for meetings with top officials, including Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and adviser Jared Kushner.

Peña Nieto said he would wait for a final report from his top officials in Washington, and previous meetings with Mexican legislators, before deciding which steps he would take next.

Peña Nieto also said he had ordered government agencies to step up protection for immigrants.

“I’ve asked for the minister of Foreign Relations to re-enforce protection measures to our citizens,” he said. He added that the 50 Mexican Consulates in the US will be used to defend the rights of immigrants in the country. He also issued a call to action to legislators and civil organizations to help immigrants.

Peña Nieto closed his message by saying that Mexico offers and expects respect.

“Mexico offers its friendship to the people of the United States and expresses its wish to arrive at agreements with its government, deals that will be in favor of Mexico and the Mexicans,” he said.

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.

Meanwhile, the Mexican officials that arrived Wednesday were expected to lay the groundwork for Peña Nieto’s visit next week, which Mexican diplomats see as an important opportunity to get past the anti-Mexico rhetoric Trump used during the campaign and a chance to put the US-Mexico relationship back on track.

“There is … frustration with our government and ourselves that we have not been able to tell the story of this important relationship,” a Mexican diplomat told CNN ahead of the visit. “There are a lot of stereotypes of Mexicans in the US, but there are also stereotypes of Americans in Mexico. It is in the interest of both governments to explain what this relationship is and what we can do together.”

In a Monday speech, Peña Nieto said his government is prepared to negotiate with the US if Mexico’s national sovereignty is respected. He laid out economic integration and respect for the rights of migrants and the money they send home as his nation’s key negotiating points.

Trump has suggested some of the $25 billion in annual remittances that migrants return home would be retained to pay for the border wall — a project Mexico opposes and which Peña Nieto has said Mexico would never pay for.

“Neither confrontation nor submission. Dialogue is the solution,” Peña Nieto said Monday.

This won’t be the first meeting for the two men. Trump flew to Mexico City during his campaign to meet Peña Nieto and said they discussed a wall Trump has vowed to build on the US southern border, but not his demand that Mexico pay for it — an assertion the Mexican president later disputed.

“At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall,” Peña Nieto tweeted, after their meeting.

The visit was widely viewed as a public relations disaster for Peña Nieto.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancels the meeting scheduled for next week with U.S. President Donald Trump, citing his plan to build a border wall between the two countries.