President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto spoke on the phone Friday, a White House official told CNN.
The discussion comes after Peña Nieto canceled a meeting with Trump that had been set for next week after the White House moved forward with plans to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and Trump tweeted that the meeting shouldn’t go ahead if Mexico wasn’t prepared to pay for its construction.
The White House is expected to provide more details shortly.
“This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the POTUS,” Peña Nieto tweeted Thursday.
“If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Trump tweeted before the meeting was canceled.
Trump has insisted that Mexico will pay for the border wall, something Peña Nieto has said will not happen.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer endorsed the idea of a 20% border tax on goods from Mexico on Thursday as a way to fund the wall, estimated to cost $12-$15 billion. But he later said that was only one of many options under consideration. It is controversial among Republicans on Capitol Hill, with critics saying the tax would be passed on to consumers in the United States.
