Mexicans not happy their president will meet with Trump

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico — Mexicans expressed shock and surprise that their president had agreed to meet Wednesday with U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Republican who promised to build a wall between the two countries.

Twitter lit up immediately with many Mexicans telling Trump he was unwelcome. They saved their harshest criticism for President Enrique Peña Nieto.

“The biggest stupidity in the history of the Mexican presidency. What was just announced doesn't have any parallels,” tweeted Jesús Silva-Herzog, a Mexican academic.

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Others asked about self-respect and rolling out the red carpet for a person who promises not-so-neighborly policies.

“It feels as if you had an abusive neighbor, who bullies you non-stop, attacks you, offends you. … your father knows it … and you invite him to the house for dinner,” tweeted José Merino, a political science professor.

Analysts say the visit was high-stakes for Peña Nieto, whose approval rating has plunged to less than 25% after a series of corruption scandals and recent revelations that he plagiarized parts of a thesis he wrote for his law degree.

“If Peña Nieto plays his cards right, he could come out looking like a hero,” said Jeffrey Weldon, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.

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But it’s a risk, Weldon said, especially if there is no news conference after the private meeting, since Trump could say something about Mexico paying for a wall or supporting his ideas — even if it isn’t true.

Peña Nieto has compared Trump’s rhetoric to that of fascist leaders prior to World War II, but he isn’t known for verbal jousting or off-the-cuff remarks like Trump. He often warns of the dangers of populism, though Weldon said those comments allude to Mexican left-wing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who leads polls for the 2018 presidential election.

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“When he talks about populism, he’s talking about López Obrador,” Weldon said. “He doesn’t see Trump as a populist. He sees him as a fascist.”

Many Mexicans appear to be unwilling to settle for anything less than an apology from Trump for his previous comments about migrants from Mexico being "rapists" and criminals. Some said that Peña Nieto could be taken advantage of by Trump.

“Tomorrow’s dilemma appears to be: Trump asks for an apology from Mexicans or Peña Nieto loses the approval he has left,” tweeted public intellectual Héctor Aguilar Camín.

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“I don’t discard the possibility that Trump could be trying some sort of apology, precisely to try to ingratiate himself with the Hispanic electorate” in the United States, said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a journalism professor at the Center for the Study and Teaching of Economics.

Some on social media see the meeting as Peña Nieto again failing to sense the public mood.

“It’s a demonstration again of how absolutely disconnected this president is with the feelings of those he governs,” Bravo said.