Enrique Peña Nieto repeats his refusal to fund border wall but leaves open the question of contentious 31 January trip to meet new US president 
 
 Mexico's president 'will not pay for any wall' – but may still visit Trump 
 
 Mexico’s president has once again declared that “Mexico will not pay for any wall” but stopped short of cancelling a visit to Washington after Donald Trump signed executive orders that include building the border barrier. 
 
 Enrique Peña Nieto reiterated that Mexico would not put a single peso towards the new US president’s signature project. In a televised address he said: “I regret and reject the decision of the US to build the wall.” 
 
 But Peña Nieto did not cancel a trip to Washington – a move many in Mexico had demanded after Trump signed an executive order to start plans for fencing off the frontier. 
 
 
 
 “I have said time and time again, Mexico will not pay for any wall,” Peña Nieto told the nation in his short video statement on Wednesday night. 
 
 “Mexico reaffirms its friendship with the people of the United States and its willingness to reach agreements with its government.” 
 
 He left up in the air the question of the 31 January meeting with Trump in the White House – saying his decision would depend on an evaluation by a team already in Washington and officials at home. 
 
 Mexicans reacted to the president’s statement with confusion. Many in the political class had called on Peña Nieto to cancel his meeting after Trump signed the executive order. 
 
 A senior government official told the Associated Press that the Mexican president was “considering” calling off the visit to Washington, but no decision had been taken. 
 
 On Thursday, Trump appeared to be goading his Mexican counterpart into pulling out of the visit, saying on Twitter: “If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.” 
 
 Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a leftist former presidential candidate, told an audience in Mexico City: “If a [Mexican] presidential visit is being announced, he will be received there by having the door slammed in his face. 
 
 “I think the least we can do in these conditions would be not to show up, cancel the visit to the United States and find a dignified position for Mexico.” 
 
 Peña Nieto has encountered sustained criticism for failing to come up with a decisive strategy to deal with Trump’s combative policies. 
 
 Trump repeatedly promised a border wall throughout his election campaign but Mexico’s political elite appeared to be hoping that the billionaire-turned-populist politician had been bluffing. 
 
 
 
 Trump's wall: Mexican construction firms likely to be biggest winners Read more 
 
 That hope proved misplaced on Wednesday, when the US president signed the order, proclaiming: “A nation without borders is not a nation.” 
 
 Trump claimed that “we’re in the middle of a crisis on our southern border”, citing an “unprecedented surge” of illegal immigrants from Central America that was harming both the US and Mexico. 
 
 The likely effectiveness of the planned wall is fiercely disputed. More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the US than have migrated to the US since the end of the 2007-08 financial crisis, according to the Pew Research Center. Research shows that immigrants are more law-abiding than non-immigrants. 
 
 Peña Nieto has consistently rejected Trump’s suggestion that Mexico will pay for the border wall and promised to put Mexico first in any negotiations. 
 
 
 
 But analysts say the president has few strong options in confronting an American administration considered the most hostile to Mexico since the Mexican-American war of the 1840s – in which Mexico was forced to cede its northern territory. 
 
 Peña Nieto – whose personal popularity ratings currently languish at 12% (the lowest in history) – appears to be caught in an impossible situation: paying for the wall would stoke domestic outrage. Not paying could provoke problems with Trump’s team, however. 
 
 “The whole thing is lose-lose. The only question is how much,” said Esteban Illades, editor of the Mexican magazine Nexos. 
 
 Trump’s executive order to build a wall along the nearly 2,000-mile US-Mexico border came on the same day Mexico’s foreign minister Luis Videgary and economy minister Ildefonso Guajardo met with senior Trump administration officials. 
 
 “I would cancel the meeting [with Trump] or postpone it as a message that we’re not going to do what they want, that we’re not going to play their game,” Agustín Basave, ex-leader of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution party, told the newspaper Reforma. “I would start by saying things like we are going to review Mexico’s cooperation in the areas of security and migration.” 
 
 
 
 Others were even more direct, including ex-president Vicente Fox – who has walloped Trump with profanity-laden tweets for more than a year. 
 
 Vicente Fox Quesada (@VicenteFoxQue) Sean Spicer, I've said this to @realDonaldTrump and now I'll tell you: Mexico is not going to pay for that fucking wall. #FuckingWall 
 
 Let's raise our voices against this dictator, Donald Trump | Vicente Fox Read more 
 
 Mexican officials have expressed hopes of salvaging Nafta, which facilitates more than $500bn annually in cross-border trade, though Guajardo told Mexican TV earlier this week that Mexico would consider walking away from the deal. 
 
 Canadian officials have also mused about abandoning Mexico to forge a bilateral deal with the US if necessary, leaving Mexico’s increasingly export-oriented economy in a bind. 
 
 “If we’re going for something that is less than what we have now, it doesn’t make sense to stay in,” Guajardo told the Televisa network. 
 
 Until recently, such a posture would have been unthinkable as Mexico shifted its economy from one so closed that smuggled candy was sold in itinerant markets to one so open it has more than 40 free-trade deals with countries around the world. 
 
 But moving away from the massive US market has proved difficult for Mexico, which sends 80% of its exports north. Peña Nieto told the nation Monday that Mexico would seek stronger ties with countries in the hemisphere, but promptly cancelled his participation in a summit of Latin American and Caribbean countries. 
 
 Trump's Mexico bashing may backfire if peso plunge forces poor migrants north Read more 
 
 “The cancelation was given in such short notice that it raises suspicions that Peña Nieto would not want to meet with other leaders who would want a strongly worded statement against Trump,” Illades said. 
 
 Peña Nieto has promised to impose conditions on any negotiation with the US, including addressing issues such as smuggled guns streaming across the border, arming drug cartels, and Mexico’s efforts to detain and deport migrants who transit its territory in attempts to reach the US. 
 
 But the president is playing a weak hand, while his approval rating of just 12% is hampering his attempts at fomenting unity in a time of crisis. 
 
 “There is unity; people do not like Trump,” says Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, a sociologist in Mexico City, “but there is this sense that Trump is not the real problem, rather trust in a presidency ridden with scandals.” 
 
 Additional reporting by David Smith ||||| Mexico angry at president's 'humiliating' meeting with Trump 
 
 MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's president was savaged on social media and in political circles following his joint press conference Wednesday with Donald Trump, with many seeing a national humiliation in his welcoming of a man who has derided migrants as rapists and criminals. 
 
 President Enrique Pena Nieto said Mexicans felt "aggrieved" and had disagreements with the Republican presidential candidate, but he never did what people here wanted most: demand that Trump apologize. Adding to the anger, in the press conference Trump repeated his promise to build a border wall between the countries. 
 
 "Trump can leave at ease now. The humiliation was complete," Televisa news anchor Carlos Loret de Mola tweeted, after lamenting that Trump would dare to reiterate his intention to build a wall "in our face and home." 
 
 And writer Angeles Mastretta wrote on her Twitter account that Mexicans saw "what was expected: a president who isn't capable of demanding apologies ... how sad." 
 
 While Trump tried to mend fences by calling Mexican-Americans "spectacular" and "amazing," and arguing that illegal immigration and the flight of manufacturing jobs were hurting Mexicans as well as Americans, his words did little to win hearts and minds south of the border. 
 
 Mexico security analyst Alejandro Hope called the meeting "a disaster." 
 
 "Trump didn't alter his positions one little bit," Hope said. "He just dressed them up a little in less incendiary language." Of Pena Nieto, Hope said "in the end, he gave Trump an opportunity to show off, while getting nothing in return. Good work, guys." 
 
 Pena Nieto later appeared to contradict Trump when he said in a tweet that during their private meeting he told the Republican candidate clearly that Mexico would not pay for the wall. In their joint press conference, Trump had said they did not discuss who would pay for the wall's construction at which point Pena Nieto said nothing. 
 
 Many Mexicans were disappointed and disgusted that Trump was invited at all. After all, Mexicans have already made — and beaten to pulp — pinatas of Trump. They created a video game in which players can throw soccer balls, cactus leaves and tequila bottles at a cartoon image of Trump. 
 
 But when the man himself came to Mexico, he was treated with kid gloves and given a warm reception at the presidential residence. The meeting could end up hurting Pena Nieto, whose popularity is already at an all-time low near 20 percent, according to recent polls. 
 
 Former President Vicente Fox said that Trump was trying to boost his sagging campaign. "He fooled him (Pena Nieto) ... he's using him to try to recover lost votes." 
 
 Artist Arturo Meade joined one of the few small protests prior to the meeting with his 2 ½-year old son Mariano, and shook his head in disgust. 
 
 "This is an insult and a betrayal," he said. "What can this meeting bring us, except surrealism in all its splendor?" 
 
 Many Mexicans felt the Republican candidate had left Pena Nieto flat-footed by accepting an invitation that Pena Nieto had made simply for appearances' sake. 
 
 El Universal newspaper wrote in an editorial that Trump "caught Mexican diplomats off guard" by accepting the invitation. 
 
 "They wanted to invite Hillary (Clinton), but that meant inviting both of them and nobody thought Trump would accept first," said Hope. "What's in it for Mexico? Here there's nothing to gain. The upside is all for Trump." 
 
 Historically, the golden rule of Mexico's foreign policy has been to avoid being seen as taking sides in U.S. politics; hence the two invitations, even though Mexico favors Hillary Clinton's position on a path to citizenship for migrants. 
 
 Pena Nieto acknowledged he had invited both candidates, and said he did it because "I believe in dialogue to promote Mexico's interests and above all to protect Mexicans everywhere." 
 
 Abraham Garnica, 31, who works as an engineer in Mexico City, was left scratching his head trying to think of a reason why Pena Nieto might have agreed to the meeting. 
 
 "They must be afraid he might win, and so they're saying, 'Just in case, we'll shake his hand,'" Garnica said. 
 
 Yolanda Herrera, a 66-year-old Mexico City housewife, sought to put the best light on what, to many, felt like a national humiliation. 
 
 "Let's hope that ... he sees that he was really wrong about what he said," Herrera said of Trump. "I think this is a display of the fact that we Mexicans are a very sympathetic people." ||||| Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shake hands after a joint statement at Los Pinos, the presidential official residence, in Mexico City, Wednesday, Aug.... (Associated Press) 
 
 MEXICO CITY (AP) — Standing alongside the president of Mexico, a measured Donald Trump on Wednesday firmly defended the right of the United States to build a massive border wall along its southern flank but declined to repeat his frequent promise to force Mexico to pay for it. 
 
 Trump, the U.S. presidential candidate who is widely despised across Mexico, also sidestepped his repeated criticism of Mexican immigrants following a closed-door meeting at the official residence of the country's president, Enrique Pena Nieto. Trump and Pena Nieto, who has compared the New York billionaire to Adolf Hitler, addressed reporters from adjacent podiums flanked by a Mexican flag. 
 
 "We did discuss the wall. We didn't discuss payment of the wall," Trump said. 
 
 In his announcement of his presidential candidacy last year, Trump derided Mexico as a source of rapists and criminals coming to the U.S., and his presence on Wednesday sparked anger and protests across the capital city. A former Mexican president bluntly told the celebrity businessman that, despite Pena Nieto's hospitality, he was not welcome. 
 
 "We don't like him. We don't want him. We reject his visit," former President Vicente Fox told CNN, calling the trip a "political stunt." 
 
 Pena Nieto was less combative as he addressed reporters alongside Trump. He acknowledged the two men had differences, but he described their conversation as "open and constructive." They shook hands as the session ended. 
 
 The trip, a politically risky move for Trump 10 weeks before America's presidential Election Day, came just hours before the Republican nominee was to deliver a highly anticipated speech in Arizona about illegal immigration. That has been a defining issue of Trump's presidential campaign, but also one on which he's appeared to waver in recent days. 
 
 After saying during his Republican primary campaign he would use a "deportation force" to expel all of the estimated 11 million people living in the United States illegally, Trump suggested last week he could soften that stance. But he still says he plans to build a huge wall — paid for by Mexico — along the two nations' border. He is under pressure to clarify just where he stands in a speech that's been rescheduled several times as he and his staff has sent varied and conflicting messages on the issue. 
 
 "The American people are going to see more clearly that there's one candidate in this race who's prepared to take the steps necessary to end the flood of illegal immigration," Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, said Wednesday on CNN. 
 
 Trump will also make clear, Pence later told CBS, "that there will be no path to legalization, no path to citizenship. People will need to leave the country to be able to obtain legal status or obtain citizenship." 
 
 The buildup to the speech was abruptly interrupted Tuesday night by the news that Trump would visit Mexico, accepting on short notice an invitation offered last week by Pena Nieto. The newspaper El Universal wrote in an editorial that Trump "caught Mexican diplomats off guard." 
 
 Campaigning in Ohio earlier in the day, Democrat Hillary Clinton jabbed at Trump's Mexican appearance as she promoted her own experience working with foreign leaders as the nation's chief diplomat. 
 
 "People have to get to know that they can count on you, that you won't say one thing one day and something totally different the next," she told the American Legion in Cincinnati. "And it certainly takes more than trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again." 
 
 He has promised, if elected, to deport millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally, force Mexico to build a wall to secure the nearly 2,000-mile border and renegotiate the NAFTA trade agreement to make it more favorable to the United States. 
 
 Pena Nieto made his invitation to both Trump and Clinton, who met with him in Mexico in 2014. The inclusion of Trump puzzled many in Mexico, who said it wasn't clear why their own unpopular president would agree to meet with someone so widely disliked in his country. 
 
 Mexico City-based security analyst Alejandro Hope suggested that Pena Nieto "wanted to invite Hillary, but that meant inviting both of them, and nobody thought Trump would accept first." 
 
 Pena Nieto has been sharply critical of Trump's immigration policies, particularly the Republican's plans to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. In a March interview, he said that "there is no scenario" under which Mexico would do so and compared Trump's language to that of dictators Hitler and Benito Mussolini. 
 
 Trump responded to Vicente Fox's criticism on Twitter earlier in the day, saying the former president had, like Pena Nieto, invited him to come. Fox shot back with a tweet of his own, saying he had invited Trump to "come and apologize to all Mexicans. Stop lying! Mexico is not yours to play with, show some respect." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Peoples reported from Washington. AP writer Jill Colvin in Phoenix contributed to this report. ||||| Washington (CNN) Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Thursday canceled a meeting with US President Donald Trump that had been set for next week after renewed tensions erupted over Trump's plan to build a wall on the border. 
 
 "This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the POTUS," Peña Nieto tweeted. 
 
 Earlier Thursday morning, Trump had tweeted that it would be better to skip the meeting if Peña Nieto continued to insist Mexico would not pay for the wall -- something the Mexican leader had said as recently as Wednesday evening. 
 
 "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting," Trump tweeted and in an earlier tweet he noted the US's trade deficit with Mexico and what he said were the American job losses caused by NAFTA. 
 
 The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers... 
 
 of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting. 
 
 Trump spoke about the cancellation during remarks at a gathering of congressional Republicans in Philadelphia. 
 
 Trump said that he and the Mexican president had mutually agreed to scrap their planned get together, and he repeated his position that the US won't fund the wall. 
 
 "Unless Mexico will treat the US fairly, with respect, such a meeting is fruitless, and I want to go a different route," Trump told House and Senate GOP lawmakers. "I have no choice." 
 
 "Border security is a serious, serious issue and a national problem," Trump said. "Most illegal immigration is coming from our Southern border." 
 
 On Wednesday night, Peña Nieto had said at that time he did not see a need to scrap the get together -- but he strongly reiterated that his country wouldn't fund any border wall, which Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday would cost $12-$15 billion 
 
 "President Trump's insistence that Mexico will pay for the wall has once again just been proven as delusional fiction by the Mexican President," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. "The wall is a multi-billion dollar boondoggle in the making, and Republicans should be embarrassed about their brazen hypocrisy in enabling it." 
 
 "Mexico does not believe in walls. I've said time again; Mexico will not pay for any wall," the Mexican president said in a video statement posted to Twitter and translated by CNN from Spanish. 
 
 The back-and-forth between the two leaders began last year during the first days of the Trump campaign when he called some Mexicans entering the US criminals and rapists and tensions lingered throughout the 2016 contest. They escalated sharply over the last 24 hours when Trump took executive action on Wednesday to begin the process of erecting a wall. 
 
 The President announced that move while a high-level Mexican delegation was visiting the White House -- the first foreign representatives to come since Trump took office -- for meetings with top officials, including Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and adviser Jared Kushner. 
 
 One member of the delegation, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who had led talks between his government and the Trump transition team, was in his car on his way to meetings at the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday when he suddenly decided he would not attend. 
 
 "We will work to schedule a future meeting and will continue to keep the lines of communication and partnership open," said DHS Spokeswoman Gillian Christensen. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Trump signs executive actions on border wall Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump signs executive actions on border wall 02:40 
 
 In his video address, Peña Nieto also said he had ordered government agencies to step up protection for immigrants. 
 
 "I've asked for the minister of Foreign Relations to re-enforce protection measures to our citizens," he said. He added that the 50 Mexican consulates in the US will be used to defend the rights of immigrants in the country and issued a call to action to legislators and civic organizations to help immigrants. 
 
 Peña Nieto closed his message by saying Mexico offers and expects respect. "Mexico offers its friendship to the people of the United States and expresses its wish to arrive at agreements with its government, deals that will be in favor of Mexico and the Mexicans," he said. 
 
 Earlier Wednesday, Trump signed two executive orders directing construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border, boosting border patrol forces, and increasing the number of immigration enforcement officers who carry out deportations. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Mexican officials who arrived Wednesday had been expected to lay the groundwork for Peña Nieto's visit next week, which Mexican diplomats had seen as an important opportunity to try to move past the anti-Mexico rhetoric Trump used during the campaign and a chance to put the relationship back on track. 
 
 "There is ... frustration with our government and ourselves that we have not been able to tell the story of this important relationship," a Mexican diplomat told CNN ahead of the delegation's visit. "There are a lot of stereotypes of Mexicans in the US, but there are also stereotypes of Americans in Mexico. It is in the interest of both governments to explain what this relationship is and what we can do together." 
 
 In a Monday speech, Peña Nieto said his government is prepared to negotiate with the US if Mexico's national sovereignty is respected. He laid out economic integration and respect for the rights of migrants and the money they send home as his nation's key negotiating points. 
 
 "Neither confrontation nor submission. Dialogue is the solution," Peña Nieto said. 
 
 Trump has suggested some of the $25 billion in annual remittances that migrants return home would be retained to pay for the border wall. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Trump: Mexico to reimburse US for wall Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump: Mexico to reimburse US for wall 02:54 
 
 Trump flew to Mexico City during his campaign to meet Peña Nieto and said they discussed a wall Trump has vowed to build on the US southern border, but not his demand that Mexico pay for it -- an assertion the Mexican president later disputed. 
 
 "At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall," Peña Nieto tweeted, after their meeting, which was widely viewed as a public relations disaster for Peña Nieto. ||||| Trump gets what he wanted in Mexico The Republican nominee gets his presidential moment south of the border. 
 
 Donald Trump could barely have scripted it better. After a year of tormenting Mexico as a hostile foe, he stepped to a podium on Mexican soil — alongside the country’s leader Enrique Peña Nieto — and got a president’s welcome. 
 
 Trump emerged from an hourlong huddle with Peña Nieto and the pair delivered side-by-side statements, embedding subtle criticisms of each other inside enthusiastic declarations of mutual respect. But it was the precise visual Trump had hoped for: a bilateral news conference that amounted to a preview of what similar international trips might look like in a Trump presidency. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 In written remarks — delivered in stilted bursts — Trump clung tightly to his arguments that the North America Free Trade Agreement had benefited Mexico disproportionately to the United States’ detriment. He described a mutual agreement with Peña Nieto about each country’s right to build a border wall. Peña Nieto even contended that Trump’s hot-blooded rhetoric about Mexicans has been, in some cases, “misinterpretations.” 
 
 Yet the most striking development may have been Trump’s decision to simply ignore the central policy proposal of his campaign: forcing Mexico to pay for the 2,000-mile wall. Trump, responding to a reporter’s question, said financing for the wall simply didn’t come up in the conversation with Peña Nieto, that the talks were “preliminary” and could be continued later. (Peña Nieto later disputed that on Twitter, writing, "At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump I made it clear Mexico will not pay for the wall.") 
 
 But it was a striking departure from his campaign-trail posture; so synonymous with the Trump candidacy is the wall proposal that adoring fans chant “Mexico!” at rallies when he asks who will fund his plan. 
 
 In a speech he plans to deliver later Wednesday in Phoenix, Trump is expected to detail his immigration policy, which has suddenly become a moving target despite forming the core of his candidacy for the past year. Along with a Mexico-financed wall, he’s long pledged mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. 
 
 A campaign spokesman reiterated as recently as Tuesday that Trump still intends to force Mexico to pay for the wall. Sean Spicer, a Republican National Committee spokesman, added that he doesn’t expect Trump's speech to include much of a departure from his previously stated policies. 
 
 “I don't want to get ahead of the speech, but he's made it very clear that everyone who is not in the country legally must leave the country so I don't expect to see any kind of departure from that,” he said on CNN Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 Peña Nieto, squeezed by political leaders in his own country, strained to deliver subtle rejections of Trump’s language while maintaining his pledge to be impartial in the American election. He delivered a methodical dismantling of Trump’s anti-NAFTA arguments, noting that trade with Mexico supports as many as 6 million American jobs. He also reminded Trump that for all the undocumented immigrants and drugs flowing north, illegal cash and weapons are flowing south. 
 
 “This is a point of view of border issues that’s clearly incomplete because it doesn’t consider the illegal flux of weapons and cash that come into the South,” he said. “Every year millions of weapons and millions of dollars cross illegally into Mexico from the North that strengthen cartels and other criminal organizations that generate violence in Mexico and receives earnings from drug sales in the United States. This flow has to be stopped.” 
 
 Illegal immigration to the United States had slowed since its peak a decade ago, he added. And he referred obliquely to Trump’s disparagement of undocumented immigrants from Mexico as rapists or criminals. 
 
 “People of Mexican heritage in the U.S. contribute every day with their work, talent, and creativity, to the prosperity and development of the U.S. and Mexico. Mexicans living in the U.S. are honest and hardworking people — they are people of goodwill, who respect family, who respect living in community, and who respect the law,” he said. “This is why Mexicans deserve everyone's respect.” 
 
 Later, Peña Nieto lamented that there’s been “misinterpretations and statements that have unfortunately hurt and affected Mexicans in the way he's presented his candidacy,” but he added that “I was sure that his genuine interest was to build a relationship.” 
 
 Trump, who delivered his statement second, embraced Peña Nieto’s language, referring to the “deep and sincere” bond between America and Mexico and referred frequently to “we,” “us” and even “our hemisphere” when describing his posture toward Mexico, a far cry from the “America First” language that typically threads his speeches at home. 
 
 Republicans largely greeted Trump’s visit as a success, primarily because he’d set a low bar and managed to exceed it. 
 
 “[Hillary] Clinton's framework is that Trump would embarrass the country abroad. He didn't,” said Josh Holmes, a Republican operative and former adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “This Mexico trip worked for Trump in the short term.” 
 
 Peña Nieto’s predecessors were less diplomatic about their president’s decision to host Trump. Vicente Fox said the visit simply legitimized Trump’s earlier harsh rhetoric. After the speech, Felipe Calderon called Trump a “hypocrite” for changing his tone. 
 
 “I don't believe him. He is lying. He doesn't mean what he says,” Calderon said on CNN. “He says we're rapists and tomorrow he says we're wonderful, smart, hardworking people. He is lying. And for that reason, I think, I was very, very sorry, I'm very sorry he came to Mexico. I think it was a very important mistake." 
 
 Democrats and even Trump’s detractors among Republicans argue that it’s too late for him to persuade large numbers of Hispanic voters to support his candidacy. Rather, they viewed his trip as a chance to frame his immigration speech and also to convince undecided white voters with concerns about his temperament that he can be trusted with international affairs. 
 
 Whether the speech turns out to be a watershed in the campaign or a too-little-too-late desperation play is unclear. 
 
 But with a firm handshake, and a declaration that Peña Nieto is a “friend,” Trump strode out of the presidential palace in Mexico City assured that, for a moment, he exceeded international expectations. And then he boarded his plane to Phoenix. 
 
 Bianca Padro Ocasio and Tyler Pager contributed to this report.
– In a situation that was unthinkable just 24 hours ago, Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto gave a joint press conference Wednesday in Mexico City following an hour-long meeting between the two, reports the Los Angeles Times, which calls Trump's jaunt to Mexico both "hastily arranged" and "stunning." "We did discuss the wall," the AP quotes Trump as saying, answering the question on everyone's mind. But: "We didn't discuss payment of the wall." But ABC News reports Peña Nieto later took to Twitter, claiming he did in fact tell Trump Mexico wouldn't pay for the wall, essentially calling the candidate a liar. During the news conference, Trump maintained it was America's right to build a wall, Peña Nieto says any talk of border security needs to include stopping the flow of money and guns into Mexico, according to Politico. In addition to not addressing his long-made claim that Mexico would pay for the wall, Trump also softened his rhetoric on Mexican immigrants. "I happen to have a tremendous feeling for Mexican-Americans," Salon quotes Trump as saying. And Peña Nieto insisted that all Mexican nationals living in the US "deserve the respect of everyone." Trump ended his speech by calling Peña Nieto, a man who once compared him to Hitler, a "friend." Peña Nieto characterized his discussion with Trump as "open and constructive." He says he believes Trump really does want to help Mexico via his policies, the AP reports. Both men are "extremely unpopular" in Mexico, as the Times puts it.