Trump
takes risky gamble with Mexico trip
The
nominee’s campaign is betting the trip will look presidential. But
it could go very wrong.
By
Kyle Cheney and Ben
Schreckinger
8/31/16, 10:13 PM
CET
Donald Trump has
spent years trashing Mexico as a corrupt enemy of the United States,
whose government has looked the other way as drug dealers and
criminals stream across the border. On Wednesday, he’ll step off a
plane in Mexico City and confront a government and people that have
followed his every utterance — and rejected them.
Trump’s meeting
with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is one of the greatest
gambles of the election for Trump. It comes as he trails in most
polls and prepares to deliver a speech expected to repackage — and
perhaps walk back — his controversial immigration policies after a
year of calling for mass deportations and a 2,000-mile border wall
with Mexico.
He’ll return from
the trip in the evening and deliver his immigration address in
Phoenix.
“If he can go down
there and look statesmanlike while at the same time being firm for
what he stands for, then I think it helps shape people’s
perceptions of him as to what he would be like if he’s actually
president,” said Steve Munisteri, a Republican consultant and
former chairman of the Texas GOP. “This is a chance for him to
demonstrate to the American people what it would be like to have
Trump as president, what it would be like if he was dealing with
foreign leaders.”
Republicans see the
gambit as a high-risk, high-reward opportunity to change the terms of
the election — but only if Trump can demonstrate presidential
demeanor on the international stage. To that end, the joint press
conference he intends to hold with Peña Nieto afterward offers a
potential glimpse into what a Trump bilateral meeting would look
like.
“He wants to
establish a conversation with a neighboring country, a leader. And
also to discuss the common problems and challenges that our country
is facing,” said Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, on
Wednesday morning.
It could be a hard
sell in a country that Trump has long blamed for America’s illegal
immigration problems. Over the years Trump – primarily on Twitter –
has labeled Mexico an “enemy,” urged an American boycott,
threatened to deduct foreign aid and feuded with former Mexican
presidents about his plans to build a border wall. After hosting the
2007 Miss Universe Pageant in Mexico, Trump claimed a local
businessman owed him money and that the Mexican court system had
failed to force him to pay.
“Mexico is not a
U.S. friend,” he tweeted last year, just before announcing his
presidential bid.
Charlie Spies, a
veteran GOP lawyer, sees the move as a simple play for swing-state
white voters, rather than an attempt to appeal to minorities.
“Winning the
Hispanic vote for Donald Trump is likely a lost cause, but the
Caucasian swing voters he needs to be successful in target states
will likely see this trip to Mexico as an important outreach effort,”
he said. “He is doing a speech today that purports to outline an
immigration policy that’s really a no win situation for him because
he demagogued the issue for so long … Even if the president
embarrasses him, and/or Trump loses his cool, no matter what happens,
the visual of him on stage with a world leader elevates him.”
One complication
already threatens to cloud Trump’s trip. Though Conway insisted
Trump and Nieto would take questions from Mexican and American
reporters, Trump’s traveling press corps was left stranded in
Arizona, a break from precedent in modern presidential campaigns.
“Trump is setting
a distressing precedent today,” tweeted the Associated Press’
Jill Colvin, a member of the Trump press corps. Others noted that
Trump did provide for press to accompany him on his last
international trip: a visit to his golf course in Scotland.
Peña Nieto invited
both Trump and Hillary Clinton last week, and the Trump campaign
scrambled to pull Wednesday’s meeting together, according to a
person briefed by a senior Trump adviser.
“Trump realized
this would be a brilliant time to do it and is trying to pull it
together last minute,” a person close to the campaign who had been
briefed by a campaign staffer said Tuesday night. “Would be a major
power play. It’s like he’s already negotiating on behalf of
America.”
The person suggested
that the meeting could, for example, allow Trump to agree to deport
only criminals if the Mexican president offered some sort of
concession in return.
Mexican political
leaders, including former President Vicente Fox, questioned why Peña
Nieto would “legitimize” Trump by hosting him at the presidential
palace. It’s raised the prospect that Peña Nieto, himself
struggling amid unpopularity, could attempt to upstage Trump and
denounce his anti-Mexico rhetoric.
“The most logical
reason he would do this is so he could forcefully denounce Trump and
try to reinforce his – elevate his standing among the Mexican
voters,” Spies said.” If he doesn’t do that, then I agree with
the criticism of people like former President Fox who believe that
this is an honor that Donald Trump has not earned.”
After Trump
announced the meeting, Peña Nieto confirmed it on Twitter,
explaining in Spanish, “I believe in dialogue to promote the
interests of Mexico in the world.” The meeting is scheduled to take
place at the presidential palace in Mexico City, the New York Times
reported.
Few political
leaders in Mexico welcomed Trump’s visit. A former Mexican
ambassador to the United States, Miguel Basañez Ebergenyi, tweeted
that Trump presents the greatest danger to the Mexico-U.S.
relationship in the past 50 years. “I deeply regret the
invitation,” he wrote.
Conway, however,
pronounced the meeting a “decisive presidential move,” while
taking a shot at Clinton for not also accepting the invitation.
“We’re just
happy the president invited him,” Conway told NBC’s “Today”
on Wednesday, adding, “I mean, I feel like she keeps following the
leader here.”
Corey Lewandowski,
who held Conway’s title until being fired amid a June leadership
shakeup but still talks with Trump regularly, similarly called the
Mexico visit “leadership.”
Lewandowski
suggested that his former boss could change the tenor of his
relationship with Mexico as a result of the trip.
“Look, it’s
very, very possible that Mr. Trump goes down there, meets the
president, says, hey, look, we have more things in common than we
have apart. Let’s find a way that in 69 days from today when I’m
elected president of the United States we can work together,”
Lewandowski said.
Arguing that Trump
would not back away from his position on the wall, Lewandowski said
that proposal was an unbreakable starting point of negotiation
“We can work
together, we can find a way that Mexico can find a way to start
paying for that wall, but it is going to be built,” Lewandowski
continued. “It’s 2,000 miles. We don’t need to build a wall all
2,000 miles. Maybe it’s 1,100 miles, because [of] the topography of
the border. But that wall is going to get built. He’s never
deviated from it. And the American people aren’t going to pay for
it.”
It is traditional
for major party presidential nominees to travel to foreign countries
to demonstrate their ability to perform on a world stage, but neither
candidate has put together a traditional sojourn abroad this year. In
June, Trump traveled to his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland and
held press conferences, which were designed largely to promote the
properties there, but he did not hold meetings with local leaders or
other political events. Late last year, Trump canceled plans to visit
Israel amid reports that it would provoke unrest among Palestinians
and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was uninterested in
meeting with him.
Clinton, who
traveled the world more extensively than any prior secretary of state
during her tenure in the Obama administration, has not announced
plans for any campaign trips abroad.
In a statement,
Clinton’s campaign reiterated some of Trump’s previous statements
about Mexicans and immigration, including calling some Mexicans
“rapists.”
“What ultimately
matters is what Donald Trump says to voters in Arizona, not Mexico,
and whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and
deportation of millions,” Clinton’s campaign said.
Such trips
traditionally are high-stakes affairs that carry both risks and
opportunities. In 2008, images of the throngs of Germans who cheered
Barack Obama as he spoke at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate helped
solidify his image at home as a transcendent figure. In 2012, Mitt
Romney’s summer trip to Europe was marred by multiple memorable
gaffes, including his criticism of London’s performance as a summer
Olympics host.
But just hours
before the meeting is set to take place, Trump, who has rarely shied
from risk in this campaign, tweeted, “I have accepted the
invitation of President Enrique Pena Nieto, of Mexico, and look very
much forward to meeting him tomorrow.”
Because Mexico
relies heavily on trade with United States and remittances from
Mexican citizens living in the U.S., Trump’s vows to deport
undocumented immigrants and adopt more protectionist trade policies
have shaken the Mexican government.
In March, Peña
Nieto compared Trump’s rhetoric to that of Benito Mussolini and
Adolf Hitler, but he has since struck a more conciliatory tone,
acknowledging that he will have to work with Trump if the Republican
nominee is elected president.
Nick Gass
contributed to this report.
Authors:
Kyle Cheney and
Ben Schreckinger
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