The State Department warned Donald Trump against traveling to Mexico for a meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto, citing the quick turnaround and Trump’s negative reputation in the country, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported Wednesday.
"The State Department is not used to moving that quickly for a high-profile visitor, and Donald Trump is controversial in Mexico," she said. "I would just say it was an advisory to the Trump people, ‘Don’t do this, don’t come so quickly. We would need a whole lot more time.’ It was just telling him this is not advisable. He’s controversial here with the situation politically in Mexico."
According to her sources, Mitchell said, Trump’s people did not want to hear it, calling it an opportune strategic move.
"They’re going, despite the advice from the State Department, that the embassy itself would have a hard time staging this," Mitchell said.
Per @mitchellreports, sources in Mexico confirm U.S. embassy told Team Trump that meeting would be difficult to arrange and advised against
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) August 31, 2016
Reason, per @mitchellreports: High-profile visits usually require weeks of planning https://t.co/0W7Mw8FFR1
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) August 31, 2016
Trump’s strong rhetoric about Mexico, including referring to some of its immigrants as "rapists" and calling for a southern border wall that Mexico will pay for, has been one of the major elements behind his presidential run since last June. Nieto invited both Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to visit him in Mexico City, but only Trump has accepted thus far.
The visit precedes a speech in Arizona later on Wednesday where Trump will seek to clarify what his position on illegal immigration is. Although he initially stated he would deport all roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., Trump indicated this month he could move toward giving legal status to some.