HAMBURG: US President Donald Trump said Friday he still wants Mexico to pay for a planned border wall, as he met his Mexican counterpart for the first time as head of state.
Asked at the start of the meeting with Enrique Pena Nieto on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G-20) Summit in Hamburg, Germany, if he still wanted Mexico to cough up the cash, Trump declared: “Absolutely.”
But Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who took part in the meeting, said the wall issue — as agreed — did not come up in the actual talks, and that he and Pena Nieto did not even hear Trump’s comment.
“It wasn’t part of our conversation (with Trump),” he told Mexico’s Radio Formula.
“We didn’t touch on that subject in our conversation, which lasted about half an hour — partly because we have a well-known, significant difference of opinion on that,” he said.
“Both sides had a prior agreement that the issue would not be on the agenda. If he made that comment, he must have made it very quietly, because I didn’t hear it.”
Building a wall between Mexico and the US to stop illegal immigration and the inflow of drugs — and Mexico paying for it — was a signature campaign pledge of Trump’s in last year’s election.
The Trump administration has yet to make serious headway on getting it built or even on who will foot the hefty bill for the 3,200-km barrier.
Under pressure from Democrats, the US Congress has so far refused to commit funding, agreeing only to finance maintenance on existing parts of a border fence.
The real battle will play out starting in October, when 2018 budget negotiations begin in earnest.
Last month Trump suggested covering the wall with solar panels and to use the energy to cover some of the construction costs.
“And this way, Mexico will have to pay much less money. And that’s good. Right?,” Trump told a crowd in Texas on June 22. “Pretty good imagination, right? My idea!“
US-Mexican relations have, meanwhile, nosedived since Trump entered the White House in January.
In January, Pena Nieto canceled a trip to Washington in response to Trump’s insistence on the issue, plunging the countries’ relations into their biggest crisis in decades.
In addition Trump has angered Mexico with attacks on Mexican immigrants as “criminals, drug dealers and rapists” and his insistence on holding tough new trade negotiations with its southern neighbor.
Since the cancelation of the trip, the two leaders have since spoken by phone, and a series of high-level meetings between the two countries have eased the tension.
Trump first met Pena Nieto in August 2016 when he was still a presidential candidate.
In their Hamburg encounter Friday, before the comment about the wall, both presidents delivered statements with Trump hailing the “successful day” at the G-20 so far.
“We’re negotiating NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and some other things with Mexico and we’ll see how it all turns out, but I think we’ve made very good progress,” Trump said.
Pena Nieto, through a translator, said that the meeting will help the two countries continue a “flowing dialogue,” in particular “for the security of both nations, especially for our borders.”
The Mexican president noted that “migration” is an issue that has “occupied” both administrations.
He added that it was a “co-responsibility to deal with organized crime issues.”
Trump sticks to guns on Mexico wall
Trump sticks to guns on Mexico wall
Bangladesh shuts universities, turns off air conditioners as global fuel crunch hits
- Bangladesh relies on oil and gas imports for 95 percent of its energy needs
- Gas stations ration fuel, government offices ordered to halve electricity use
DHAKA: Bangladesh has closed educational institutions and slashed the use of air conditioning and lighting at government offices in a worsening energy crisis linked to the US-Israeli war with Iran and the closure of vital oil and gas routes from the Middle East.
A country of 170 million people, which relies on imports for 95 percent of its energy needs, Bangladesh has for years been vulnerable to disruptions in global energy markets.
Oil and natural gas prices have been soaring since the beginning of the US-Israeli attack on Iran last week, which triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes on American-linked assets across the Gulf region and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Bangladeshi authorities almost immediately started implementing austerity measures, including fuel rationing at gas stations, ordering educational institutions to begin their Eid Al-Fitr holidays ahead of schedule, and government offices to minimize power consumption.
“The prime minister has already started using half of the lights at his office. He does not turn on air conditioning unless it’s urgent. This austerity is being practiced at all offices across the country,” Saleh Shibly, press secretary to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, told Arab News on Tuesday.
“The move has been undertaken as a preventive measure in case the global energy situation deteriorates further due to the ongoing war in the Middle East.”
The measures might offer some immediate relief if they can be enforced nationwide, as during summertime — from March to June — the use of air conditioning consumes more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity.
“The government needs to build consensus so that people realize that each and every one can contribute to this energy conservation,” said Prof. Abdul Hasib Chowdhury from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
But energy conservation could help only immediately, he said, as the Iran war brought to the spotlight the fact that Bangladesh has no strategic energy reserves — an issue that the prime minister and government, who only took office last month, will have to address during their term.
“Bangladesh needs to build a strategic reserve of energy — primary fuel for the power plants, and also for the industry. Between three and six months of energy reserves have to be here,” Chowdhury said. “This will take years of planning and work to build these reserves. Nevertheless, Bangladesh should do that.”
Oil prices have surged by about 50 percent since the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, topping $119 a barrel on Sunday.
For Bangladesh, every $10 increase in global fuel prices raises the monthly import bill by roughly $80 million, according to BRAC EPL, one of the country’s leading stockbrokers.
While the effect will not be felt immediately, especially as the government announced on Tuesday it had no plans to increase the prices of fuel or electricity, Bangladeshis are likely to experience a crisis in the longer term.
“It’s more like a looming crisis because any shortfall in supply takes a little bit of time to show. So, the agriculture will be affected, but it will be realized only after a few months,” Chowdhury said.
“It will affect transportation and, because of that, the primary food supply, which would add to inflation ... It is not a crisis as such at this moment, but it will be.”
