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DONALD TRUMP HAS announced that he will travel to Mexico today to meet its president, just hours ahead of giving a much-anticipated speech in Arizona on immigration.
The Republican presidential nominee’s surprise trip south of the border comes as debate about his hardline immigration policies is reaching fever pitch.
Although his visit holds potential political peril, Trump could seize control of the campaign narrative at a crucial time, showing a willingness to engage diplomatically on a sensitive issue at the heart of his campaign.
Mexico’s presidential office confirmed the visit, posting its own tweet in Spanish to say the billionaire New York real estate tycoon “has accepted the invitation and will meet tomorrow privately with the President.”
He further tweeted that the meeting would “promote the interests of Mexico in the world and, mainly, protect to the interests of Mexicans”.
Pena Nieto’s office said in a statement that he had sent invitations to Trump as well as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Her campaign has announced no plans for a visit, with an aide saying yesterday that Clinton “looks forward to talking with President Pena Nieto again at the appropriate time.”
Trump has routinely assailed Mexican immigrants who illegally cross the border into the United States. Hardline immigration policies including calls for deportations are a key plank of his campaign.
A sudden international trip by a US presidential candidate would be a logistical and security nightmare at such short notice.
But Trump could be sensing an opportunity in the visit as he mulls whether to soften his positions on immigration, particularly the call early in his campaign to deport some 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows.
Any Trump-Pena Nieto meeting could be an awkward affair.
In rally after campaign rally, Trump has pledged to “build a wall” on the US southern border if he becomes president and to force Mexico to pay for it.
Pena Nieto for his part has likened Trump to “Hitler and Mussolini” and slammed the Republican nominee for his isolationist positions.
And in a July interview, he told CNN that “there is no way that Mexico could pay for a wall like that.”
Trump used some of the most incendiary language of his campaign when launching his White House bid last year, describing Mexicans as drug dealers, rapists and other criminals.
He is scheduled to deliver what is billed as a crucial speech this evening in Phoenix, Arizona, seen as an opportunity to clarify his positions on immigration.
In recent weeks he has expressed willingness to soften his hardline stance to a “fair and humane” policy ahead of November’s election.
‘Baby steps’
But Trump has vacillated between reaching out to minorities and returning to the anti-immigration rhetoric that goes down well among his most ardent supporters, mainly white working-class males.
That now looms as an obstacle as he seeks to expand his base in the general election contest at the expense of Clinton, who has accused Trump of fueling xenophobia and racism.
Commenting on his Mexico visit, Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri pointed to Trump’s insults directed at Mexicans and his campaign promises, including a pledge to ban remittances to families in Mexico if their country refuses to pay for a border wall.
“What ultimately matters is what Donald Trump says to voters in Arizona, not Mexico, and whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and deportation of millions,” she said.
The recent tweaks to Trump’s tone have included a change from insisting on removing millions of the undocumented to promising deportations of those immigrants with criminal records.
Trump’s new campaign director, Kellyanne Conway, said there has been little real change in the central tenets of Trump’s immigration platform, including “no amnesty” for those in the country illegally.
Despite this, Trump yesterday repeated his signature campaign promise to build a wall on the US border with Mexico.
© – AFP 2016 with reporting by Rónán Duffy
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Just read very scary line……”the HSE are setting up a working group” my god a year into a pandemic this lot would last a week in the private sector…….
@David cotter: I’m always confused by this statement .
Day after day we see the dysfunctional nature of a private sector that spend all their time giving out about the public sector as they hide money from the tax man and treat their employees shabbily . Please explain what is so laudable about the private sector compared to its public counterpart . Those in the private sector choose it because the risks may be a little higher but the rewards are too.
@David cotter: That is to keep the multiple managers occupied. As the organisation is completely top heavy with managers/directors they have to try and justify their roles. They setup working groups and group think tanks and all that kind of rubbish so they can sit together and look at slide decks about nothing etc.
@Conor Flood: spoken like a true HSE middle manager or other type of obscure civil servant Connor
@Conor Flood: One word Conor. Accountability. If you screw up in the private sector you get fired. If you screw up in the public service you get promoted.
@David Corrigan: usual nonsense! You don’t honestly believe that surely?! Would bet that everyone on here can very easily come up with an example of someone screwing up in the private sector and not getting fired! http://www.publicjobs.ie will get you in to the elite club if you really think that’s actually true though….It isn’t a closed shop like! You’ll have to be self motivated though and not just doing what you’re meant to be doing because the boss is watching!
@David cotter: secondary school teacher . You speak like ya true low level private sector worker who is angry at the world for having chosen the wrong profession. Enjoy your day and your bitterness .
@David Corrigan: I don’t agree with you on this one . Employees screw up all the time in the private sector and are protected by employment laws against unfair dismissal . They don’t get fired they simply don’t get promoted . The same is true in any job private or public .
If you screw up in the private sector you get fired? If that was the case most management would be gone from eir by now.
@Conor Flood: ahh Conor. You’re a teacher probably like mr mcclean
Waiting on reports, setting up working groups, everything is always in planning or expected to happen. Nothing ever really actually happening. I think antigen tests would be a useful tool in the final phases of this virus but have zero faith in this governments ability to do anything more then talk or do a hatchet job on anything they do actually attempt. This country can’t be rid of this government soon enough.
A lot of school staff have bought their own antigen tests, this country is a joke, they like to compare us to the uk when it suits their agenda to get schools open but won’t follow suit with the antigen testing that may actually catch covid cases before they spread too much. No one in government seems to consider or care about staff in schools or their families. That’s very evident by the broken vaccine promises. Special schools in particular are as much care settings as education and yet staff in other care settings have been vaccinated but not special schools and now to push the vaccine even further away is an absolute insult!
@Louise S: yep, and the tests don’t come cheap
But why ramp up testing in schools and colleges? It is the age group that are mostly asymptomatic, require no hospitalizations. Is it to keep case numbers high and use it as an excuse to keep the restrictions, different levels of lockdowns, introduce new measures, keep us in further suspended animation?
@Goran Josifov: because kids can catch it and spread to parents and childminders. It is one of the riskiest environments for spread. It is a containment measure. Should have been done a long time ago
@Goran Josifov: still spreaders
Another working group, good god, if we had this sorta efficiency in the private sector nothing would get done and project deadlines would be missed by miles and someone would be sacked…the amount of red tape in our health service and shielding those in charge have and at an administration level around decisions they make is a joke
Didn’t they say at one stage that anti gen testing was unreliable ?
@Nigel Hayden: We returned thousands of antigen tests in work because of false readings. Confirmed cases of Covid through PCR testing were tried a few days later with antigen testing and all 4 of the people we knew who had covid showed up negative.
The problem is that in alot of cases they are self administered and the person doesnt put the swab far enough up their nose or throat to get a true reading.
Also, the antigen tests are most effective when the person is showing heavy symptoms of covid and not in the initial stages of infection.
@EdmundOrlando: Maybe the PCR is the issue
It’s the antibody test that needs to be ramped up, that’s the only way to collect data on how herd immunity will effect hospital admissions. Have they no sense at all.
Brilliant news and they have experience now with the success of the pop up testing centres. I have faith they can do this, hopefully do this for meat plants in particular.
@Ally Mc Culladgh: are you a bot?
@Jimosea: No.
@Ally Mc Culladgh: your faith in an organisation that has for 20+ years at an administration and management level, that its overpaid, top heavy and has continued to miss target’s while simultaneously flushing billions of the taxpayers down the hse Black hole as we can call the health service budget….is admirable, but also worrying given the fact we face a decade or so of people likely bringing legal action against the hse and state over wilful neglect of other medical issues completely ignored during covid due to completely inept management of or health services…..I hope your confidence brings the results you hope, me I feel another fiasco on route cos well that’s what thwwwmp9t are good for
@Tarraing Mo Liathróidí: Pop up test centres are a success so far. They now have some albeit limited experience in this type of system. So a popup antigen should be just as sucessful.
So is this starting next week or another two weeks down the line?
@Adam Ford: billrabbitte72@gmail.com
Prob a year or more knowing the way the government takes so long to implement things
Paul Reid from the HSE talking about antigen assays. The language, the persona, the individual, the accent.
Definitely a mismatch somewhere.
PCR v Antigen tests.
Strange bias for ‘ONLY’ PCR tests by NPHET members … I wonder why?
Why is there such an emphasis on maximising the very expensive PCR tests v cheap Antigen testing, even if not as accurate (but could be applied more widely).
WHO and NPHET got masks wrong … they may understand Health but certainly not Safety!
I really think that they play with the numbers they are not giving everyone the vacine i know a lady of 91 who got a call yesterday to cancel her second vacine tomorrow surgery do not have vacine un maybe next week
have your say