text: Trump to Peña Nieto: border wall not so important – just don't say you won't pay - Luxembourg Herald
  4th August 2017 World 30496
  Donald Trump dismissed the importance of a border wall, his signature campaign issue, in a phone conversation with the president of Mexico.
  "From an economic issue, it is the least important thing we were talking about, but psychologically, it means something," Trump told Enrique Peña Nieto on 27 January in the call. A White House transcript of the call was published by the Washington Post on Thursday.
  The Post also published a transcript of Trump's call on 28 January with Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister of Australia, in which he tried to wriggle out of an Obama-era deal to resettle refugees currently held on the island of Nauru.
  Much of the conversation with Peña Nieto focused on Trump's acknowledgment that Mexico would not pay for the wall – as he had repeatedly told supporters it would – and his need for Peña Nieto not to say so. The Mexican president had cancelled a planned visit to Washington over the issue.
  Trump even threatened to cut off relations with Peña Nieto. "Because you and I are both at a point now where we are both saying we are not to pay for the wall," he said. "From a political standpoint, that is what we will say.
  At the G-20 summit in Hamburg last month, Trump again voiced approval for having Mexico pay. Peña Nieto said nothing. Foreign minister Luis Videgaray later told a Mexico City radio station neither he nor the president had heard Trump's comments.
  Trump recognised that relationship in the White House call, telling Peña Nieto: "I did not want to meet with anybody. It was only because of a very good relationship that Jared Kushner has with Luis that these two decided to meet and discuss, but I was not really in favour for that meeting."
  Some in Mexico interpreted Peña Nieto's passivity as an attempt to avoid unduly angering Trump over the impending renegotiation of Nafa, the key trade accord between Canada, the US and Mexico. Talks start this month.