Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday predicted Mexico would strongly enforce a new deal under which it agreed to expand a controversial asylum program and boost security on its southern border to stem Central American migrants trying to reach the United States.
The deal, announced on Friday after three days of negotiations in Washington, averted Trump’s threatened imposition of 5% import tariffs on all Mexican goods starting on Monday.
“Mexico will try very hard, and if they do that, this will be a very successful agreement between the United States and Mexico,” Trump wrote in a tweet on Saturday morning.
The Trump administration believed the deal would “fix the immigration issue,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday in a Reuters interview on the sidelines of a G20 finance meeting in Fukuoka, Japan. Mnuchin warned, however, that Trump retained the authority to impose tariffs if Mexico failed to enforce the new agreement.
Trump also tweeted on Saturday that Mexico would immediately begin buying “large quantities” of agricultural goods from U.S. farmers, who have been hit hard by his trade war with China and risked a new blow from Mexican retaliation if Trump had imposed tariffs.
It was not immediately clear whether Mexico made such a pledge. There was no mention of expanded Mexican purchases of U.S. agricultural products in the joint U.S.-Mexican declaration outlining the immigration deal.
