Trump to meet with Mexican president at G20

President Trump will meet Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at next week’s Group of 20 (G20) summit in Germany, the pair’s first meeting since Trump visited Mexico City in September 2016 during the presidential campaign. 

National security adviser H.R. McMaster announced the meeting to reporters Thursday.

Trump and Peña Nieto were scheduled to meet in Washington shortly after Trump’s inauguration, but a public spat between the two presidents over Trump’s attempts to make Mexico pay for a proposed border wall derailed that visit.

After that meeting was canceled, top White House officials hosted Mexican Cabinet members in Washington. The two presidents also talked on the phone, but they never rescheduled the meeting.

{mosads}The G20 meeting between the two North American leaders comes as Mexico, the United States and Canada prepare to open negotiations on renewing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants and trade and security cooperation with Mexico has soured the relationship somewhat, but both governments maintain close working relations in multiple fields.

Trump’s mid-campaign visit to Mexico City caused political mayhem for Peña Nieto, who was forced to fire his closest adviser, then-Secretary of Finance Luis Videgaray.

Videgaray and Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner were seen as the engineers of the mid-campaign meeting.

Videgaray was later appointed Mexico’s secretary of Foreign Relations, a position he still holds.

McMaster said Thursday that Trump also plans to hold private meetings with other G20 leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping.