Donald Trump to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto: ‘Pay up or don’t come’

In his second presidential TV interview, he told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity that he was keen to keep as many of his election promises as he can.

Some of them are already in motion, including his push for a wall to be built on the US-Mexican border.

“The wall is necessary its not just politics,” President Trump said.

“People want protection.”

President Trump also reiterated his comments he made during his TV interview yesterday with ABC anchor David Muir, where he stressed the need to have better “vetting” of people coming into the US.

“We’re going to have extreme vetting for people coming into our country,” he said.

.@POTUS: “How can you vet somebody when you don’t know anything about them and you have no papers? … You can’t.” #Hannity pic.twitter.com/xl9UBCqWEO

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 27, 2017

“You look at Nice ... Germany it’s a mess, the crime is incredible ... and we’re just not going to let that happen here.”

“The whole world is angry right now. There are such problems in the world and such anger.”

President Trump told Hannity that the FBI had 1000 ongoing investigations, involving “people who were let in”.

“We don’t need this,” he said.

“We take in tens of thousands of people, we know nothing about them.”

When asked about terrorism and Islamic State, President Trump described their recruits as “sneaky dirty rats”.

“They are bad people,” he said.

“They’re sneaky, dirty rats and they blow people up in a shopping centre and they blow people up in a church.”

“We are fighting sneaky rats right now that are sick and demented. And we’re going to win.”

.@POTUS: “Some people have come in with evil intentions, most haven’t I guess, but we can’t take chances.” #Hannity pic.twitter.com/cxnHFLGnsN

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 27, 2017

On relations with other foreign superpowers, President Trump said he is expected to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about China soon.

When given the nuclear launch codes, he described it as “serious stuff”.

“When you see the kind of destruction that explained to you, you realise getting along with people is a good thing,” he added.

“If we can get along with Russia that’s a good thing.”

President Trump also took Hannity inside the Oval Office, where he showed him a small bust of former US President Abraham Lincoln, before he pointed out the bust of Martin Luther King Jr was still there, despite earlier reports it had been removed.

“These people are liars,” he said.

“Martin Luther King is here, he’ll always be here,” he said.

He also has chosen several paintings from around the White House of former US Presidents including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson.

His desk is the same design that Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt once had.

He said he liked the desk, which he chose from around seven others.

‘Look at my desk. Papers. You don’t see presidents with that on their desk,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of great presidents use this desk,” he said.

Hannity even asked him about his desk phone, and he replied: “I have great phones, the technology we have in this country is great.”

He said he also chose the same floor rug Reagan had as he liked “the look”.

When asked about his letter from former President Barack Obama, he said it was “helpful”, and

“it’s something to think about”.

He also told Hannity the US needs more submarines but he wants to buy them at a lower cost, resuming his push to get defence contractors to cut the prices they charge the Pentagon.

“We’re lacking submarines and we’re going to build new submarines but the price is too high so I’m cutting the prices way down,” he said.

Two US-based companies, General Dynamics Corp’s Electric Boat division and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding, build the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines.

Trump, who took office on Friday, made increasing military spending a key part of his campaign.

 

Since winning the November election, he has pressured US defence contractors to reduce the cost of the products they sell to the Pentagon.

In December, Trump received a pledge from the chief executive of Lockheed Martin to cut the cost of the controversial F-35 fighter jet after Trump complained in a tweet about the plane’s price tag and said he would ask Boeing to offer a cheaper alternative.

 

President Trump has also railed against Madonna’s controversial comments at last weekend’s women’s march.

The singer attracted criticism for using profanities while addressing the marchers and saying she had thought about “blowing up the White House”.

“Honestly, she’s disgusting. I think she hurt herself very badly. I think she hurt that whole cause,” he said.

He also said it was a “disgrace” for a Saturday Night Live writer to criticise his young son Barron on Twitter.

“For NBC to attack my 10-year-old son ... it’s a disgrace,” he said SNL writer Katie Rich was suspended indefinitely for the tweet and has since apologised.

TRUMP TO CREATE ‘GREAT WALL’ TARIFF

President Trump will ask US Congress to impose a 20 per cent tax on all Mexican goods to pay for the construction of a wall on the border.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters travelling with Trump aboard air force One that the move would be part of the beginning of a process of widespread tax reform.

“By doing it we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding,” he said.

But later, Spicer tried to take back his earlier comments by saying the 20 per cent tax is one of several options under consideration and Trump hasn’t settled on it as the way to recoup construction costs for building the wall.

Mexico supplies $US21 billion worth of agricultural produce — mostly fruit, vegetables and alcohol — to the US each year. It’s also the third largest source of US goods imports.

Such a tax would likely make price rises inevitable.

“We are probably the only major country that doesn’t treat imports this way,” Spicer said to justify the move. “This gets us in line frankly with the policies that other countries around the world treat our products.”

However, the removal of such tariffs has been a major part of international trade development in recent decades.

Trump has previously argued for a 20 per cent tax on all imports to the United States, regardless of their origins. Last year he told the New York Times that he wanted a 45 per cent tariff on all Chinese imports.

 

BORDER CHIEF FORCED TO RESIGN

The man charged with protecting America’s borders was ousted today, one day after President Donald Trump announced ambitious plans to build a massive wall at the Mexican border and bolster the ranks of the Border Patrol.

Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan said he was asked to leave and decided to resign rather than fight the request, according to a US official with knowledge of the brief video conference in which Morgan informed senior agents of the change. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was not intended to be made public.

The forced resignation leaves Trump with a leadership gap but also gives him a chance to start fresh with a Border Patrol chief of his own choosing. Border security and a “big beautiful wall” paid for by the Mexican government were centrepieces of Trump’s immigration platform during his presidential campaign.

 

MEXICAN STANDOFF OVER WALL

Mexico is willing to talk with the United States in order to maintain good relations, but paying for President Trump’s border wall “is not negotiable,” Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said.

“There are things that are not negotiable, things that cannot and will not be negotiated. The fact that it is being said that Mexico should pay for the wall is something that is simply not negotiable,” Videgaray said during a press conference at the Mexican embassy in Washington.

The news of the proposed tariff hike to pay for the wall came after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled a meeting with the US President that had been set for next week.

Mr Trump jumped on Twitter overnight to demand that his Mexican counterpart should cancel his upcoming visit to Washington if his country refuses to pay for a wall along the border.

“The US has a 60 billion dollar (AU$80 billion) trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers ... of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Mr Trump said on Twitter.

The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017

of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017

Mr Pena Neito showed that he has also mastered Twitter, sending out a tweet to alert Mr Trump that he is not longer coming.

“This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the POTUS,” Mr Pena Nieto tweeted.

At a press conference after the Mexican President’s tweet, Mr Trump said that it would’ve been “fruitless” for Mr Nieto to come for talks if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the wall.

“The president of Mexico and myself have agreed to cancel our planned meeting scheduled for next week,” Mr Trump told Republican politicians at a retreat in Philadelphia.

“Unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless, and I want to go a different route. I have no choice.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says Congress is moving ahead with plans for the wall which would cost $US12 billion to $US15 billion ($16 billion to $20 billion).

Senator McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan did not say how Congress would pay for the wall that Mr Trump has vowed to build.

“We anticipate a supplemental (budget) coming from the administration,” Mr Ryan said. “The point is we’re going to finance the Secure Fence Act.”

The tweet came after Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said his talks in Washington DC with a key trade adviser to Mr Trump over the future of bilateral commerce had shown the US side was receptive to Mexico’s point of view.

 

Mr Guajardo told Mexican television he had held long talks with Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro on Wednesday on how the two countries should seek to modernise the NAFTA trade agreement sensibly, and how to avoid obstacles to free trade.

The talks had shown the US side was receptive to what Mexico had to say, Mr Guajardo said.

STATE DEPARTMENT HEADS ‘ASKED TO LEAVE’

It came as the entire senior management team of the US State department submitted their resignations as new Secretary Rex Tillerson takes up his post.

Despite reports of mass resignations, CNN says two of the four top State Department officials who are leaving have told it that they were asked to go.

Among the four top-level staff to leave is Patrick Kennedy, who was widely tipped to become Tillerson’s No. 2 at the department.

Mr Trump, who nominated the ex oil tycoon to the key cabinet position, is reportedly seeking to ‘clean house’.

Former Exxon Mobil Corp chairman Rex Tillerson was granted to take over the Secretary of State role by the Senate foreign relations committee from Democrat John Kerry last week.

He still has to receive approval from the full Senate, but this is widely expected.

 

 

 

Kerry’s former chief of staff David Wade told the Washington Post: “It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate”.

Among those confirmed to be leaving are Gregory Starr, Assistant Secretary for State for Diplomatic Security, Michele Bond, Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs and Tom Countryman, the acting undersecretary for arms control and international security.

“These retirements are a big loss. They leave a void. These are very difficult people to replace”, Wade told the paper.

TRUMP ISSUES AUSTRALIA DAY MESSAGE

Mr Trump has sent an Australia Day message, declaring America has no better friend than Australia.

The message was delivered by acting Secretary of State Thomas Shannon Jr and comes just days after Trump killed America’s participation in the trans-Pacific Partnership with Australia and other allies and as he considers whether to make it harder for Australians and Kiwis to travel to the US.

“On behalf of President Trump and the American people, it is my honour to congratulate the people of Australia as you celebrate this Australia Day, 229 years after the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Harbour,” Shannon Jr said in a statement.

“It has been over 75 years since your commonwealth and the United States established diplomatic relations, but connections between America and Australia reach back to that fleet.” The Los Angeles Times revealed on Wednesday that Trump, in tightening up America’s borders, is considering ending the visa waiver program that allows Australians, New Zealanders and citizens of 36 other nations, including many close allies in Europe, to easily visit the US on 90-day tourist visas.