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Mexican president cancels meeting with Trump
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

Mexican president cancels meeting with Trump

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has cancelled his pre-planned meeting with President Donald Trump following the new American leader's order to move forward with the construction of a border wall along the U.S.'s southern perimeter.

"This morning we informed the White House that I will not be attending the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with [the president]," Peña Nieto tweeted late Thursday morning.

In a follow-up post, the Mexican president reiterated his country's "willingness to work with the United States to achieve agreements in favor of both nations."

The update from Peña Nieto comes after Trump signed an executive order Wednesday jump-starting his campaign's foundational promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Part of Trump's vow was that Mexico would pay for the wall. In an interview Wednesday night with ABC News, host David Muir pressed the president on how exactly Peña Nieto's country will foot the bill for the wall. Trump also tweeted Thursday morning that if Nieto continued to insist that Mexico will not pay for the wall, then the meeting should be cancelled.

While Trump said the barrier would initially be funded by taxpayer dollars, he promised Mexico would "100 percent" repay the U.S. for the construction.

However, Peña Nieto, for his part, has repeatedly said his country will in no way pay for the wall.

"He has to say that," Trump told Muir. "I'm just telling you, there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form and you have to understand, what I'm doing is good for the United States. It's also going to be good for Mexico."

An additional order also boosted border patrol forces, increased the number of immigration enforcement officers in charge of deportations and stripped federal funding from so-called "sanctuary cities" that harbor immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

"Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders," Trump told employees of the Department of Homeland Security Wednesday.

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