Jared Kushner is to meet Mexico’s president amid heightened tensions over the border wall and trade.
The senior White House adviser and presidential son-in-law will be traveling to Mexico City with a delegation that includes staff from the State Department and National Security Council.
They will meet with Mexico’s foreign minister and officials are expected to discuss security, immigration, trade and other issues.
Jared Kushner is to lead a delegation to Mexico to discuss security, immigration, trade and other issues
Tentative plans for President Enrique Pena Nieto to visit the White House were scrapped last month after a testy telephone call with Donald Trump over the wall the US leader has pledged to build on the border between the two countries.
Pena Nieto also scrapped a planned trip to Washington shortly after Trump took office in January 2017.
The two leaders spoke for about 50 minutes at the end of last month.
But the discussion led to an impasse when Trump would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position that it would not fund construction of the wall along the US-Mexico border.
A Mexican official reportedly said Trump lost his temper during the conversation.
Donald Trump and President Enrique Pena Nieto met when the President was running for office but a meeting at the White House was cancelled
Pena Nieto (left), who met Trump in July on the sidelines of a G20 summit, canceled an earlier meeting after Trump threatened to impose a tax on Mexican imports to pay for the wall
US officials described Trump as frustrated and exasperated, because he believed it was unreasonable for Pena Nieto to want him to back off his campaign promise of forcing Mexico to pay for the wall.
The wall has become a sticking point in talks to keep alive a federal program that protects young people who were brought to the United States illegally as children from deportation.
In his latest budget proposal to Congress, Trump requested $23 billion for border security, most of it for building the wall.
Pena Nieto, who met Trump in July on the sidelines of a G20 summit, canceled an earlier meeting after Trump threatened to impose a tax on Mexican imports to pay for the wall.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s economy secretary says it might impose retaliatory tariffs on ‘politically sensitive’ U.S. products if America doesn’t exempt Mexico from worldwide duties on steel and aluminum announced by President Trump.
Alfonso Guajardo told the Televisa network on Tuesday that ‘what we would have to do is set up a response on those export goods that are the most politically sensitive, and target those goods in particular.
In the past, Mexico has sometimes slapped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products from states that could influence the U.S. president in turn.