President Donald Trump declared at a rally in Phoenix on Aug. 22 that he is prepared to shut down the government if Congress does not include money to begin constructing a wall along the border in a must-pass funding bill due by the end of September. | Rick Scuteri/AP Mexico to Trump: We won't pay for a border wall 'under any circumstances'

Spurred by President Donald Trump’s emphatic reiteration that it will eventually pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Mexican government said in a statement Sunday that it will not fund such a project “under any circumstances.”

“As the Mexican government has always stated, our country will not pay, under any circumstances, for a wall or physical barrier built on US territory along the Mexican border,” the statement from Mexico’s foreign ministry read. “This statement is not part of a Mexican negotiating strategy, but rather a principle of national sovereignty and dignity.”


Trump’s promise to construct a border wall has reentered the spotlight in recent days, with the president declaring at a rally in Phoenix last week that he is prepared to shut down the government if Congress does not include money to begin constructing the wall in a must-pass funding bill due by the end of September. He has argued that construction cannot wait for Mexico to accede to his long-held demand that it pay for the wall and that Congress should instead fund the wall on the assumption that the Mexican government will eventually pay the U.S. back.

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Sunday morning, amid a flurry of tweets about Hurricane Harvey, Trump wrote that “With Mexico being one of the highest crime Nations in the world, we must have THE WALL. Mexico will pay for it through reimbursement/other.” In a subsequent post, the president also called NAFTA, a trade deal he has pledged to either renegotiate or back out of entirely, the “worst trade deal ever made” and said Canada and Mexico are “both being very difficult” in the renegotiation process.

The Mexican foreign ministry, in its statement, rejected the president’s accusation.

“Mexico's position at the renegotiation table of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will continue to be serious and constructive, always putting our national interests first, and seeking a beneficial result whereby the three North American countries win,” it said. “Mexico will not negotiate NAFTA, nor any other aspect of the bilateral relationship, through social media or any other news platform.”

The foreign ministry’s statement closed with an offer to help respond to Hurricane Harvey, which hit the Texas coast Friday as a Category 4 storm and has dropped record amounts of rain on the Houston area.

“The Mexican government takes this opportunity to express its full solidarity with the people and government of the United States as a result of the damages caused by Hurricane Harvey in Texas, and expresses that it has offered to provide help and cooperation to the US government in order to deal with the impact of this natural disaster — as good neighbors should always do in trying times,” the Mexican government said.