Mexico reviews cooperation with US over 'blatant' tension

MEXICO CITY - Mexico is carrying out a sweeping review of its cooperation with the neighboring United States because of "blatant" tension with Donald Trump's administration, the country's foreign minister said on Monday.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has ordered all departments of the federal government to reevaluate bilateral cooperation, his office said - a review Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said was a direct response to recent tension.

Trump has stoked anger in Mexico by ordering thousands of National Guard troops to the border and attacking the Mexican government on Twitter over its supposed failure to stop an influx of drugs and undocumented migrants into the US.

Mexico denounced these measures as an "aggression", with the Mexican Senate asking the government to end bilateral cooperation on migration and organized crime until "Trump behaves with the civility and respect the people of Mexico deserve".

Videgaray said the areas under review would include the vital issues of trade and the two countries' extensive cooperation on security, which includes the joint fight against international drug trafficking.

"Given the current climate and the very public and blatant differences we currently have with the government of the United States, President Enrique Pena Nieto will be taking decisions," Videgaray said.

He said the president had not yet taken any decision to suspend or reduce cooperation in any area.

A visibly offended Pena Nieto gave a national address on Thursday after Trump announced his decision to deploy the National Guard to the border, warning Trump that "threatening attitudes and a lack of respect" were out of line. The latest rise in US-Mexican tension began with days of angry tweets from Trump over a caravan of more than 1,000 Central American migrants crossing Mexico toward the US.

Trump called on the Mexican government to stop them, threatening to ax what he called Mexico's "cash cow", the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The US last year triggered a renegotiation of that deal, which also includes Canada, after Trump called it a "disaster". Those negotiations continue.

The migrant caravan, however, has now begun breaking up. Organizers said last week they would no longer seek to bring the group all the way to the US border. It will end its activities this week with a series of rallies in Mexico City.

Relations have been tense since Trump won election in 2016 with a campaign heavy on anti-Mexican rhetoric and promises to build a border wall.

Pena Nieto has twice canceled plans to visit the US over Trump's ongoing insistence that Mexico pay for the wall.

AP - Xinhua

(China Daily 04/11/2018 page11)