The standoff between President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto continued with some pretty stern tweets Thursday.
“If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Trump tweeted early Thursday, CNN reports. Peña Nieto had been scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House next week, according to USA Today.
Peña Nieto then announced Thursday that the meeting would, in fact, be canceled, according to CNN. “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.
White House press secretary Sean “Spicy Facts” Spicer noted, “We’ll look for a date to schedule something in the future. We will keep the lines of communication open,” according to CNN.
As late as Wednesday, Peña Nieto had planned to meet with Trump but added that he had no plans to have his country pay for a border wall, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday would cost $12 billion to $15 billion.
“President Trump’s insistence that Mexico will pay for the wall has once again just been proven as delusional fiction by the Mexican president,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN. “The wall is a multibillion-dollar boondoggle in the making, and Republicans should be embarrassed about their brazen hypocrisy in enabling it.”
“Mexico does not believe in walls. I’ve said time again: Mexico will not pay for any wall,” Peña Nieto said in a video statement posted to Twitter, according to CNN.