Donald Trump criticized Mexico for failing to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States and repeated his campaign promise that Mexico will pay for building a wall along America’s southern border, prompting a public rebuke from Mexico’s president.

“In the end, Mexico is going to pay for the wall,” the US president told supporters at a campaign-style rally in Nashville. “They do absolutely nothing to stop people from going through Mexico, from Honduras and all these other countries … They do nothing to help us.”

Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, swiftly responded on Twitter that his country will “never pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.” Mexico has long said it would not pay for a border wall and has chafed at Trump’s repeated insistence otherwise.

Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) President @realDonaldTrump: NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.



Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).

The president’s comments could threaten negotiations with Mexico over trade policy. Trump had vowed a revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) this year, but talks between the two countries and Canada have yet to produce a compromise.



The president nonetheless escalated his hardline stance on immigration on Tuesday, even as the Trump administration faces backlash for its policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. Trump has blamed Democrats for the policy, despite his own administration publicly stating they would enforce a new “zero tolerance” plan to prosecute anyone who crosses the border illegally.

A lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleges that there have been at least 429 cases of immigrant parents being separated from their children, ranging from toddlers to young teenagers, over the past two years. Rights groups have accused the Trump administration of also separating children from parents applying for asylum at legal ports of entry.

Ivanka Trump photo with son sparks backlash over border separations Read more

Although the majority of the asylum seekers are fleeing violence in Central America, Trump revived his unsubstantiated claim that many of the immigrants were gang members while likening them to “animals”.

“They want to cut people up into little pieces,” he said in Nashville. “They’re not human beings.”

“What was the name?” he then asked of the crowd, to which the rally-goers chanted: “Animals!”

Trump also took aim at Nancy Pelosi, who criticized the president’s use of the phrase “animals” while discussing immigrants, labeling the House Democratic leader as an “MS-13 lover”.

Trump traveled to Tennessee to raise campaign cash for the Republican representative Marsha Blackburn, who is running for a Senate seat. The president is slated to appear at a series of political rallies and events in the coming months to boost Republicans and brand Democrats as obstructionists to his agenda.

Agencies contributed reporting