Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has joined the growing chorus of voices worldwide condemning Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
Pena Nieto, whose country is at the center of Trump's pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and to make Mexico pay for it, does not see Mexico succumbing to Trump's demands any time soon, telling the Excelsior newspaper that there is "no scenario" under which Mexico would pay for the wall. This follows a comment from Mexico's finance minister Luis Videgaray, who last week called Trump's wall a "terrible" idea.
The Mexican president also had a sobering analysis of the electoral support that Trump is enjoying in the United States. Joining his predecessors Felipe Calderon and Vicente Fox — both former presidents of Mexico — Pena Nieto likened Trump's rise to that of 20th century fascism:
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"And there have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of this strident rhetoric have only led to very ominous situations in the history of humanity," the Mexican president added."That's how Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in, they took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis."And I think what [they] put forward ended up at what we know today from history, in global conflagration. We don't want that happening anywhere in the world," Pena Nieto said. [Reuters]
Comparisons to Hitler and Mussolini aside, Pena Nieto says he has not ruled out working with a President Trump. According to Reuters, the Mexican president "stressed that his administration will seek to reach agreement and maintain a respectful relationship with whoever wins the U.S. presidency."
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