ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

Donald Trump was today making a surprise trip to Mexico to meet the country’s president hours before delivering a highly-anticipated speech on immigration.

The Republican White House candidate said on Twitter that he looks “very much forward” to meeting President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Mr Pena Nieto and Mr Trump will meet in private after the Mexican leader invited both him and his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton to visit the country.

The pair have clashed in the past over Mr Trump’s call for Mexico to pay for a border wall between the two countries to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.

Mr Trump put the issue at the centre of his presidential campaign last year when he accused Mexico of “sending people [to the US] that have lots of problems”.

“They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists,” he said.

Mr Pena Nieto has been sharply critical of Mr Trump’s insistence that Mexico would pay for the border wall.

In an interview in March, he said that “there is no scenario” under which Mexico would do so.

He also compared Mr Trump’s language to that of dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, saying it had hurt US-Mexico relations.

But he used a different tone last night, writing on Twitter: “I believe in dialogue to promote Mexico’s interests in the world and, principally, to protect Mexicans wherever they are.”

In recent meetings with Hispanic supporters, Mr Trump has suggested he could be open to changing the hardline approach on immigration he outlined during the Republican primaries.

The tycoon did not mention the Mexico trip during an evening rally outside Seattle, but he did make a reference to his scheduled speech on immigration that is set for this evening in Phoenix.

“We are also going to secure our border and stop the drugs from pouring in and destroying our country,” he said.

“And I’ll be talking about that tomorrow night in Arizona. Big speech on immigration. We’ll be talking about that in Arizona tomorrow night.”

The billionaire tycoon has seen his poll ratings slip since the party conventions last month, with Mrs Clinton ahead both nationally and in key states.

Mrs Clinton, who has not yet said if she will travel to Mexico, tweeted today that “from the first days of his campaign, Donald Trump has painted Mexicans as ‘rapists’ and criminals”. She said what mattered was not what Mr Trump says in Mexico but “whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and the deportation of millions”.