Peña Nieto has canceled the meeting in response to political pressure, but he will continue to push his underlying agenda of negotiating impunity for his government as his administration winds to an end. Indeed, he was prepared to sell his country down the river in hopes that Trump would ignore the vast corruption scandals and systematic human rights violations south of the border.

Trump and Peña Nieto have a great deal in common. The Mexican president already applies mass deportation policies, of the kind Trump promised, against Central Americans trying to cross Mexico towards the United States. Peña Nieto has also already begun construction, with U.S. help, of a high-technology equivalent of a “wall” on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.

Like Trump, Peña Nieto has placed the corporate agenda front and center. He began his administration with a blitz of “structural reforms” that privatized the oil and electricity industries, rolled back protections for labor, and attacked public education. Freedom of expression and protest have also come under heavy fire. Marches are systematically repressed, social and political leaders jailed or assassinated, and journalists censored, fired or murdered. Federal security forces have also committed a series of heinous massacres. An extreme equivalent of the America’s Patriot Act, allowing for the permanent use of the military for law enforcement and the generalized suspension of habeas corpus, freedom of assembly, and other fundamental rights, is presently being discussed in the Mexican Congress.

Peña Nieto directly contributed to the success of the Trump campaign. On August 31st, 2016, the Mexican president organized what amounted to a royal reception for Trump at the Los Pinos Presidential Residence in Mexico City. The Republican candidate was struggling in the polls at the time, shortly after the Democratic National Convention had given Hillary Clinton a significant bump. One of Trump’s weakest spots was that he was perceived to be unable to handle the job of commander-in-chief or be fully respected by foreign leaders. His aggressive attacks on immigration had also created the impression that he was a racist.

Peña Nieto would save the day. As if Trump were already President of the United States, he was flown from the Mexico City airport to Los Pinos in the presidential helicopter. The two men then held a joint press conference adorned by Mexican and American flags in the ballroom normally reserved for foreign heads of state. Peña Nieto applauded the “fundamental agreements” with Trump on policy and offered to work with the Republican candidate to “strengthen” both the U.S.-Mexico and the Mexico-Guatemala borders. During his turn at the microphone, Trump proclaimed that Peña Nieto was his “friend.”

Energized by his campaign stop in Mexico City, Trump then travelled that afternoon to Arizona to deliver one of his key anti-immigration speeches. There, Trump simultaneously called Peña Nieto a “wonderful president” and publicly ratified his promise to build an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall.” Thanks to Peña Nieto, all of a sudden Trump miraculously had become, without modifying his policies an inch, both a statesman and a friend of Mexico and Mexicans. His polls rose thereafter.