Mexican President, Andres Obrador, on Thursday expressed hope of a deal with the United States to resolve a migration dispute.
He said that the deal would also help the country to avoid Trump’s administration imposing trade tariffs on it in the coming week.
Obrador, at his regular morning news conference, said he was confident that the two sides would reach a deal, and repeated that Mexico would act prudently in talks with senior officials from the U.S. government.
“The U.S. authorities have behaved very well; President Trump and the administration haven’t closed themselves off to dialogue, and we hope that a deal is reached today,” he said.
Trump recently said he would apply escalating tariffs of five per cent on all Mexican exports to the U.S. if Mexico did not contain a surge in migration, mostly from Central America.
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This has sparked a jump in apprehensions on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The tariffs will begin on June 10 and will gradually rise to 25 per cent by October if there was no deal,’’ Trump said.
A Mexican delegation led by Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, is in Washington seeking to broker a deal with the U.S. government, and high level meetings continue.
Obrador, when asked whether Mexico would strike back in the event of U.S. tariffs, said all options were being considered by his government.
However, he did not want to talk about possible retaliation for the time being.
The president was insistent that Mexico needed to apply its laws to stem illegal immigration, while reiterating that the problem needed to be addressed at the point of origin.
Most of the migrants caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Obrador expressed particular concern about Honduras when talking about the circumstances that were leading to increased migration. (NAN)
