Trump's Humiliating Visit Could Doom Mexico's President and His Party Jan-Albert Hootsen - Politico
go to original September 3, 2016

Former Mexico Foreign Minister: Nobody in Mexico Wanted President Pena to Give Donald Trump an Audience (CNN/Buzz Sourse)

If Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto one day decides to write a memoir and chronicle his greatest mistakes, inviting Donald Trump to Mexico City could very well end up at the top.

In Mexico, the Republican presidential hopeful is one of the most unpopular people alive; only 2 percent of Mexicans still hold a positive view of the real estate mogul. His incendiary comments about Mexican immigrants, calling them rapists and criminals, and his controversial plans to build a “great wall” at the U.S.-Mexican border and engage in mass deportation of undocumented migrants have made him an easy target for hatred and mockery.

But it is Peña Nieto, not Trump, who faces nationwide anger over the unprecedented meeting. Days after the event, the general opinion of Mexicans is that Trump might be the bad guy, but inviting him over for a friendly chat was at best ill-advised and at worst a humiliating display by a president who, far from confronting the bully from the north, acted in an awkward, subdued and, according to some, submissive manner.

“Trump won and Peña Nieto lost,” says Fernando Dworak, a Mexican political scientist. “The entire event was a colossal failure.”

What’s more, the already deeply unpopular Mexican president, whose approval rating has plunged below 25 percent and whose ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is under threat of losing the presidency in 2018 as the Mexican economy lags, criminal violence flares up and corruption scandals plague his administration, appears to have chosen the worst possible moment to have met the flamboyant billionaire.

... More than the invitation, though, what really set off public opinion was the lackluster way the president treated Trump during and after the meeting.

Read the rest at Politico

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Related: Peña Nieto: Trump’s Policies Are a Threat and Risk to Mexico (PanAm Post)

Related: By Welcoming Trump Mexico Offended Clinton (Mexico News Daily)

Related: Donald Trump Went to Mexico — and All We Got Was This Stupid Election (Salon)

Related: Mexican President's Meeting with Trump Could Have Ramifications at Home (Stuff)

Related: Alejandro Iñarritú Calls the Mexican President’s Meeting with Trump “a Betrayal” (Vanity Fair)

Related: The Behind-the-Scenes Skirmishing That Resulted in Mexico’s Invitation to Trump (The Washington Post)

Related: Even Before Trump's Visit, Peña Nieto Was Mexico's Least Popular President Ever. Too Late to Change That? (The Los Angeles Times)

Related: Trump Invited to Mexico to Calm Nervous Markets: Report (teleSUR)

Related: Trump's Tough Words on Immigration Irritate Mexicans, Hispanic Partners (Xinhua)

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