But as Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson arrived in Mexico on Wednesday, twin threats hung over the frayed relationship between the two nations: President Trump’s new orders to round up
and deport immigrants who are in the United States illegally, and a separate effort to take a hard look at all American aid to Mexico, possibly using it to pay for a border wall instead.
At an event in Mexico City on Wednesday, Mr. Videgaray said, “I want to make clear, and in the most emphatic way,
that the Mexican government and the Mexican people do not have to accept orders that a government seeks to impose unilaterally on another.”
That threat to saddle Mexico with other countries’ migrants is one reason Mexican officials could
emerge from their meetings this week deciding to fight rather than appease the Americans.
Mr. Tillerson, the top American official to visit Mexico since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, arrived with John F. Kelly, the secretary of Homeland
Security, only a day after the Trump administration released documents ordering a crackdown on immigration in the United States.
By Friday, American officials are required to finish calculating all the money and grants
that the United States provides to Mexico, a task that Mr. Trump first demanded in the executive order he signed last month directing the construction of a border wall.
The Trump administration also said it planned to detain non-Mexicans who had crossed the southwest border with the United States
and send them back to Mexico to await the outcome of their deportation proceedings.
Though American officials said that this measure would be done only after discussions with the Mexican government, Mexican officials
and legal experts rejected the idea as a violation of Mexican law and international accords.