Trump’s announcement on Monday came more than a week after the American leader said talks to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada were "coming along great."
“Mexico, whose laws on immigration are very tough, must stop people from going through Mexico and into the US. We may make this a condition of the new NAFTA Agreement,” Trump wrote in a Twitter post. “Our Country cannot accept what is happening!”
Trump's pledge to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to stop the flow of migrants to the US was a central theme of his election campaign.
The three parties to NAFTA agreed in July last year to hold seven rounds of talks to renegotiate the deal; however, little progress has been made on key issues. The penultimate round of the NAFTA negotiations is scheduled to be held in the Canadian city of Montreal between January 23 and 28.
In reaction to Trump’s remarks, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said that Mexico decides its immigration policy in a sovereign manner, and that it would be “unacceptable” to condition the renegotiation of NAFTA to the issue.
Mexico has previously called on the US to uphold the 24-year-old trade deal, arguing that the suspension of such an agreement would have consequences for all the parties involved.
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