‘Their tone was an ultimatum,’ Mexico FM details Trump bullying

The country’s top diplomat said at a press conference Monday that it was considering entering a regional asylum agreement in case the current deal failed.

The two sides reached the deal after Trump backed down from his threats of imposing tariffs on Mexico.

“The government of the United States came to the meeting where the vice president was present saying the only way there wouldn't be tariffs today was that Mexico accept and sign over the weekend an agreement to be the first country of asylum,” Ebrard said.

“That’s what happened in the meeting with the vice president, which was very harsh. Harsh not in the sense that they were rude, but in the sense that their tone was almost an ultimatum. Well, without the ‘almost.’”

He further elaborated about the two things the two sides agreed on,  one requested by the US and one by Mexico.

 “After very intense negotiations we arrived at two measures, one of our own and one of theirs. And we agreed on a time table to do things and see who's right,” he said.

The measures involve accelerating deployment of the Mexican National Guard to the country's southeast border as well as expansion of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a program under which Central Americans requesting asylum in the United States wait out their court cases in Mexico.

“We told them, and I think this was the most important achievement of the negotiation, let's have a timetable to see if Mexico is right in what it's proposing today, and if not we'll sit down to see the additional measures you propose and others we may think of,” said the Mexican foreign minister. "What was achieved in this negotiation? In the first place, that the two issues be separated again… We succeeded in putting the migratory issue on one table and commerce and tariffs on another."

In the meantime, Trump was repeating threats of re-imposing the tariffs.

“We do not anticipate a problem with the vote but, if for any reason the approval is not forthcoming, Tariffs will be reinstated!” the president tweeted.

Washington and Mexico reached an accord to avoid a tariff war on Friday after Mexico agreed to expand a controversial asylum program and dispatch its security forces to contain the flow of illegal immigration from Central America.

“Well, I’m going to tell you that most people understand that the people having to do with borders and illegal immigration and immigration of any kind, they understand exactly what that is,” Trump told CNBC Monday. “But we purposely said we wouldn’t mention it for a little while. It’s going to be brought up because it has to be brought by their legislative body. It’s got to be taken to a vote. So we didn’t bring it up, but most people know that answer.”

The concessions by Mexico came after Trump threatened to levy increasing import tariffs of five percent on all Mexican goods on Monday if the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador did not take measures to tighten its borders.