Mexico blasts Trump as carmaker comments hit peso

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto blasted Donald Trump’s pressuring of US companies not to manufacture south of the border hours after the president-elect on Wednesday sent the peso tumbling to an all-time low by predicting “big, big factories are going to be built in this country as opposed to another country”.

“We reject any attempt to influence corporate investment decisions on the basis of fear or threats,” Mr Peña Nieto told an annual gathering of Mexico’s diplomatic corps. 

Mr Trump has praised carmaker Ford for pulling the plug on a $1.6bn plant in Mexico and Fiat Chrysler for increasing its US investment, including possibly producing a pick-up in Michigan which is currently made in Mexico. He said he hoped General Motors would follow suit. The three carmakers together made up 49 per cent of Mexico’s car exports in 2016, according to latest industry data. 

The Mexican peso briefly tumbled through 22 to the dollar on Wednesday, before recovering some ground, reflecting the very real damage Mr Trump’s policies could wreak on a country that sends more than 80 per cent of its exports to the US. 

I can assure you that we are going to work to have a good relationship with the US and its president. A relationship that is good for Mexico and the Mexicans

In his first news conference since the election, Mr Trump reiterated threats to slap high tariffs on manufacturers shifting production and jobs to Mexico, to build a border wall — not a fence, as he has previously suggested parts of it could be — and to make Mexico foot the bill. 

His tone indicated that despite the red carpet treatment he received from Mr Peña Nieto on a visit in August, and his assurance during the news conference that “Mexico has been so nice”, he has no plans to be obliging towards his southern neighbour. 

Mexico, he said, had taken advantage of the US for years with trade deals that favoured it more than the US. Mr Trump wants to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement and Mr Peña Nieto, promising to be pragmatic, said Mexico would “seek deals that give certainty to investment and trade” between it, the US and Canada. “We are going to defend national and foreign investment in Mexico,” he said. 

Mr Peña Nieto, who last week appointed Luis Videgaray, the architect of Mr Trump’s visit to Mexico, as foreign minister, promised an “open and complete negotiation” of relations, including deeply intertwined trade ties, security and migration. Mr Videgaray says the incoming president is “extraordinarily nice” and “a negotiator”. 

In what would be a comical understatement if the stakes were not so high, Mr Peña Nieto said: “It’s evident that we have some differences with the next US government.” One, he said, was the planned wall “which Mexico, of course, will not pay for”. He said protecting the flow of more than $24bn in annual remittances from the US was also key. 

But he added: “I can assure you that we are going to work to have a good relationship with the US and its president. A relationship that is good for Mexico and the Mexicans.”