Mexico is turning up the heat on Donald Trump following the businessman and presidential hopeful’s offensive comments about Mexico and Mexicans, some of whom he described as criminals and “rapists”.

The country’s largest television network Grupo Televisa said Trump has “offended the entire Mexico population” and Ora, a TV network owned by Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim, described Trump’s comments as “racist”. Both of the networks have cut all ties, taking the number of TV companies ditching Trump to four following NBC Universal and Univision.

“Mr Trump hasn’t demonstrated understanding or respect towards Mexican migrants and has offended the entire Mexican population,” a Televisa spokesman said. “Televisa isn’t indifferent to these declarations and energetically condemns all forms of discrimination, racism and xenophobia.”

Televisa’s decision not to broadcast Miss Universe means there will be no Mexican contestant in this year’s competition. Televisa and former Miss Universe Lupita Jones organize a pageant to select a Mexican candidate for the contest.

Arturo Elías Ayub, the chairman of Ora, said it was “incredible that someone can think like this in the 21st century and have this racist position”.

Ayub, who is also Slim’s son-in-law, said Trump’s comments were “totally out of line [and] working with someone so close-minded was not going to work”. He said Ora last week scrapped a reality series it was working on with Trump’s companies last week.

Trump sparked a minor diplomatic incident when he launched his presidential bid earlier this month with an attack on Mexico for “sending people [to the US] that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists.” He also called on Mexico to fund the building of a “great wall” along the southern border to prevent the supposed influx of Mexican criminals to the US.

On Monday he defended his stance. “Public reports routinely state great amounts of crime are being committed by illegal immigrants. This must be stopped and it must be stopped now,” Trump said after being dropped by NBC.

In Mexico protests have ranged from the artisan who started selling Trump piñatas, to the fury expressed by newscasters, pop stars, politicians, and columnists.

Immediately after Trump made his remarks, Televisa’s nighttime news anchor, Joaquin Lopez Doriga called the magnate “an imbecile.” This, he added, “is not an insult, it is a description.” Fher Olvera, lead singer of the Mexican group Mana, began his response in charitable mood. “We feel pity for this incompetent man,” he said during a concert in Los Angeles before adding, “I have never heard a speech as violent or as filled with hatred – not since Hitler.”

Former actress Carmen Salinas, who was elected to be a federal deputy earlier this month, uploaded a video on Youtube in which she told Trump he has “the face of a dried up louse.” Former presidential candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, meanwhile, said Trump’s comments should not surprise Mexicans. “Even if the donkey is carrying gold and puts on airs and graces with ridiculous blond hair, it is still a donkey,” he wrote in his column in the newspaper Milenio.

With the controversy lasting weeks, some commentators have turned their criticism inwards, taking aim at the Mexican government’s direct response to Trump’s comments many see as giving them an importance they should not have. Mexican Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Meade said they showed “a deep ignorance of the reality of Mexicans, and the contribution of migrants.”

Javier Garza, a former newspaper editor, said this official willingness to engage with Trump came from the government’s failure to develop an active strategy to address migration issues involving Mexicans within the United States.Writing in a chat of prominent commentators curated by the news website Animal Politico, Garza said the government should be preparing a such a strategy to respond to possible “Mexico-bashing” in the primaries. “But in an intelligent way,” he added, “not getting embroiled in individual debates with buffoons who only want to provoke.”