Trump says may tie Mexican immigration
control to NAFTA
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[April 24, 2018]
By Doina Chiacu and Anthony Esposito
WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S.
President Donald Trump threatened to make Mexican immigration control a
condition of a new NAFTA trade deal on Monday, even as ministers from
Canada, the United States and Mexico readied a fresh push to finalize a
revamped accord this week.
"Mexico, whose laws on immigration are very tough, must stop people from
going through Mexico and into the U.S. We may make this a condition of
the new NAFTA Agreement," Trump wrote in a Twitter post. "Our Country
cannot accept what is happening!"
Trump made similar comments linking the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) and immigration when a 'caravan' of migrants from
Central America moved through Mexico earlier this month. "They must stop
the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA,"
Trump wrote in an April 1 Twitter post.
However, discussion of immigration controls has not been a part of
formal negotiations on the new NAFTA accord, and talks by all accounts -
including Trump's - are progressing.
Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray dismissed Trump's comment in his
own Twitter post. Mexico decides its immigration policy in a sovereign
manner, he said, and it would be "unacceptable" to condition the
renegotiation of NAFTA.
Before Trump's tweet, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he hoped
for agreement soon on a reworked NAFTA.
Speaking in Germany, Nieto said differences between the parties could be
overcome to revamp the 24-year-old accord, which underpins some $1.2
trillion in annual trilateral trade.
Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told a news conference in
Toronto that she would be traveling to Washington on Tuesday to meet
with Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and U.S. Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer.
"We have for the past few weeks been involved in intensive negotiations.
This is a phase of very, very energetic work by Canada and we will be
continuing that at the ministerial level in Washington," said Freeland.
Guajardo and others have said a NAFTA deal could be possible by early
May, and officials hailed progress made on the key issue of new
automotive sector rules last week.
Even so, differences still remain on U.S. demands to change dispute
resolution mechanisms, and other issues.
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President Donald Trump waves as he arrives on Air Force One at Joint
Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., upon his return to Washington from
Palm Beach, Florida, April 22, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
"The U.S. still needs to be more flexible so there are conditions to
create jobs in Mexico, the United States and Canada," said Juan
Pablo Castanon, head of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, the
umbrella group representing Mexican private sector interests at the
NAFTA talks.
It was too early to say when a deal could come, he added.
A Mexican source close to the talks, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said a deal was unlikely for Tuesday, adding that "two to
three days of work" between negotiators and ministers were still
needed.
DWINDLING CARAVAN
Since peaking at about 1,500 people, the so-called caravan of
migrants has dwindled under pressure from Trump and Mexican
authorities, who vowed to separate those migrants with a right to
stay in Mexico from those who did not.
One group of several hundred migrants could reach the U.S. border by
Tuesday or Wednesday.
"If members of the 'caravan' enter the country illegally, they will
be referred for prosecution for illegal entry in accordance with
existing law," Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen said
in a statement on Monday.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement he had
directed officials to beef up the numbers of prosecutors and
immigration judges at the border to deal with any increased workload
from the caravan.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington & Anthony Esposito in
Mexico City; Additional reporting by Delphine Schrank in Mexico City
and David Ljunggren in Toronto; Editing by Bill Trott and Rosalba
O'Brien)
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