Mexican Government Says It Won't Pay For Trump's Wall
MEXICO CITY (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The Mexican government has made his first direct response to Donald Trump's pledge to build a wall along the two countries' border -- and make Mexico pay for it.
Mexican Treasury Secretary Luis Videgaray says "emphatically and categorically'' that it isn't going to foot the bill for the project proposed by the Republican presidential hopeful.
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Videgaray told Milenio television late Wednesday that "Mexico will under no circumstance pay the wall that Mr. Trump is proposing.''
The wall proposal has been criticized widely and fiercely in Mexico, but the government itself has tried to avoid commenting directly on the issue until now.
During his presidential kickoff event last year, Trump called Mexican immigrants criminals and said that some are rapists.
"They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists and some, I assume, are good people," Trump said at the June 16 event. "It's coming from more than Mexico. It's coming from all over south and Latin America and it's coming, probably, from the Middle East, but we don't know because we have no protection."
Trump has been widely criticized for the statement but he has refused to apologize.
Earlier this year, Trump exchanged retorts with Pope Francis, who criticized Trump's plan for the wall.
"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," Francis said. "This is not in the Gospel."
Not having heard Trump's border plans independently, Francis said he'd "give him the benefit of the doubt." But he added: "I'd just say that this man is not Christian if he said it this way."
At a rally in support of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the GOP wants to build walls, while he and those like-minded want to build bridges.
"The wall. The big wall. The long wall. The thousand-mile wall. The China wall! Don't worry, the wall is a beautiful wall," Cuomo said, seemingly mocking Trump's proposal to build a wall paid for by Mexico.
Trump is leading the Republican presidential contenders and has used especially tough talk on immigration.
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