MEXICO CITY — Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, has arrived in Mexico for talks with top Mexican officials, including President Enrique Pena Nieto.
The Mexican media reported that Kushner arrived in Mexico City on Wednesday morning and was whisked to a meeting with Luis Videgaray, the Mexican foreign minister, who has cultivated a close relationship with the Trump confidante.
Among the issues on the agenda, officials said, are trade, immigration, security and the closely linked economies of the two North American neighbors.
Here in Mexico, Kushner’s visit was widely seen as a move to soothe rocky U.S.-Mexico relations.
The binational bond has been fraught since Trump assumed office after a presidential campaign marked by what many Mexicans view as blatant Mexico-bashing and scapegoating of Mexican immigrants in the United States.
Kushner’ s visit comes as tensions between the two North American neighbors have flared anew amid profound differences about trade policy and Trump’s insistence that Mexico pay for a wall along the southern U.S. border — a demand Mexico has repeatedly and emphatically rejected.
The ongoing U.S.-Mexico tensions led to the resignation last week of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson, who is said to have viewed her role as undercut by the machinations of Kushner and Videgaray.
A planned visit by Pena Nieto to Washington was postponed last month, reportedly after a tense telephone call between the two leaders during which Trump again pushed for Mexico to pick up the bill for the multibillion-dollar wall, which is to be built on the U.S. side of the border.
That aborted trip recalled a headline-grabbing episode in January 2017, when Pena Nieto announced he had scuttled a planned visit to the White House because of the border wall dispute.
The canceled trip just weeks after Trump’s inauguration set a downbeat tone for U.S.-Mexico relations during the Trump era — though, in subsequent months, officials from both nations sought to relieve strains.
Just this week, however, the binational tensions ratcheted up anew in connection with another incendiary issue between the countries — the ongoing renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the almost quarter-century-old trade pact between Mexico, the United States and Canada.
Trump has repeatedly blasted NAFTA as a “disaster” that helped hollow out the U.S. manufacturing sector and sent jobs to Mexico.
On Monday, Trump declared in a Twitter message that he would consider exempting Mexico and Canada from planned new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum “if a new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed.”
Both the Mexican and Canadian governments rejected Trump’s comments and vowed to retaliate economically should Washington impose new tariffs on metal imports.
Kushner’s expansive foreign-affairs portfolio includes U.S.-Mexico issues, though he is not known to have had any expertise in the field before he joined his father-in-law’s White House.
Kushner’s visit here comes after last week’s announcement in Washington that his security clearance had been downgraded after months of delay in completing his official background check.
The downgrade restricts Kushner’s access to some classified information. But his official visit to Mexico, accompanied by other U.S. aides, seems to signal that Kushner will continue to be a key player, at least in U.S.-Mexico affairs.
Kushner, a New York-area real estate scion who had no diplomatic or government experience his father-in-law was elected president, has been Trump’s go-to adviser for some of Washington’s most delicate issues, from Middle East peace to Mexico.
The Mexican foreign minister, Videgaray, worked to establish and sustain contacts with Kushner during Trump’s presidential campaign, at a time when few believed that Trump could win the election.
Videgaray has continued to cultivate those contacts, frequently traveling to Washington and heading straight into meetings at the White House — with Kushner — and completely sidelining the usual venue, the State Department.
The Kushner-Videgaray back-channel has helped keep on track what otherwise would be a ruptured relationship. The two have attempted to soothe the impact of Trump’s repeated insults and derogatory language about Mexico and Mexicans.
However, the Mexican foreign minister also has come under criticism at home for being too close to Kushner and the Trump White House. Videgaray is said to have helped arrange then-candidate Trump’s August 2016 meeting in Mexico City with Pena Nieto — an encounter that became a political debacle for the Mexican president.
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(Times staff writer McDonnell reported from Mexico City and staff writer Wilkinson from Washington.)
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