President Barack Obama meets with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in the Oval Office on July 22. | Getty Obama unloads on Trump, promises to protect Mexico relationship

President Barack Obama wasted no time Friday delivering another implicit rebuke of Donald Trump on Mexico and immigration, hours after the Republican nominee officially claimed the party mantle to take on presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in November.

"Let me start by saying something that is too often overlooked, but bears repeating — especially given some of the heated rhetoric that we sometimes hear. The United States values tremendously our enduring partnership with Mexico and our extraordinary ties of family and friendship with the Mexican people," Obama said at the start of a joint press conference with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.


Noting that Mexico is the United States' third-largest trading partner, Obama remarked upon the "millions of tourists, businesspeople, and friends, family" who "cross the border legally" every year.

"On a whole host of issues, from our shared security, to climate change, Mexico is a critical partner, and is critically important to our own well-being," Obama said. "We are not just strategic and economic partners. We are also neighbors, and we're friends, and we're family — including millions of Americans that are tied to Mexico by culture and by language. And that's why as president, I worked to deepen the partnership between our nations."

Returning to the significance of the countries’ cooperation later in the briefing, Obama suggested that the relationship would endure regardless of who leads either nation.

On immigration, Obama noted that while “the issue of the border” “obviously always gets a lot of attention,” more of the recent migration flows have come not from Mexico, but Central America. Trump on Thursday night proclaimed that the U.S. will "build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities."

“And if it were not for the hard work of Mexico in trying to secure its border to the south and to cooperate with us, we would have a much more significant problem. And that is not always easy,” Obama said. “That requires resources and policy decisions made by the Mexican government, but the cooperation on that front has been absolutely critical in making sure that we deal with these issues in a serious way and in a humane way. And we continue to make progress on that front."

Obama also spoke about the need to cooperate to combat drug trafficking, a problem Trump vowed to fix in his acceptance speech Thursday by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"This is a problem of both of our countries," Obama said. "And as a consequence of the work that we've done together, we have seen progress in some areas, both in the flow of drugs north, but also in the flow of guns and illicit financing south.”

The U.S. will not be able to solve the problem alone, Obama said, “and Mexico is going to need United States to cooperate in order to rid itself of the violence and corruption that results from the drug trade.

“And I want everybody to be clear, Mexico has been a consistent, strong partner with us on these issues,” Obama reiterated. “And if they had not been, we would have had much bigger problems on our borders, and the benefit of a cooperative Mexico -- and by the way, a Mexico that has a healthy economy, and Mexico that can help us build stability and security in Central America, that’s going to do a lot more to solve any migration crisis or drug trafficking problem than a wall. And it’ll be much more reflective of the kind of relationship that we should have with our neighbors.”