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MEXICO CITY, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Thursday he will not attend a work meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump scheduled for next Tuesday in Washington.
"This morning we informed the White House that I will not attend the work meeting planned for next Tuesday with the POTUS," Pena Nieto said on Twitter.
His comments came hours after Trump, who took office last week, tweeted that the meeting should be canceled if Mexico is unwilling to pay for a border wall.
"If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting," Trump said in a pair of tweets.
The talks were originally planned on issues about renegotiation of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and migrants.
Trump claimed in his tweets that "the U.S. has a 60 million dollar trade deficit with Mexico" and descried NAFTA as "one-sided deal" from the beginning with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost.
However, Pena Nieto said earlier this week that he will "preserve the free trade" between the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"Trade exchange between the three countries must be exempt from any tariffs or fees, as has been the case since 2008," according to a statement from the president's office.
The row over the wall between Mexico and the United States escalated on Wednesday when Trump signed an executive order on the "immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border."
Trump has maintained that Mexico would ultimately bear the cost of building the wall.
Pena Nieto responded later Wednesday that his country rejected the U.S. decision to build a border wall and "will not pay for any wall."
Building a wall between the United States and Mexico was a central and controversial part of Trump's campaign, which drew support from low-income voters who believed that their jobs have been taken away by Mexicans as well as ire from opponents who considered the wall to be a symbol of xenophobia.
Trump's order of building wall along the Mexican-U.S. border has drawn wide criticism not only from Mexico, but also other parts of Latin America.
Mexico opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged his government to file a lawsuit at the United Nations (UN) against the U.S. government for violation of human rights and racial discrimination.
Raul Benitez Manaut, from the Center for Research on North America at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said forcing Mexico to foot the bill for the wall is likely to generate more hostility than the wall itself.
"That would definitely create a huge conflict between the two governments," said Benitez, a specialist in bilateral ties.
The move sends "a clear message" to all Latin American countries and the sizable Latino community in the United States, which represents some 20 percent of the U.S. population, said Mauricio Santoro, professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro
"Trump is sending a message to the continent, to show it that it will be treated very roughly and aggressively," he added.
