Donald Trump's private jet landed in Mexico City Wednesday for a hastily arranged meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, according to local media reports, marking Trump's first formal international trip as the Republican nominee to a country where he is broadly despised for his vilification of illegal immigrants.
Trump and Peña Nieto plan to meet this afternoon, ahead of a major immigration speech Trump intends to deliver in the evening in Phoenix. His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Trump intends to talk to Peña Nieto about "shared concerns" including trade, illegal immigration and drugs.
"It's very important to show that you're willing to work with a neighboring country before you're president," Conway said on Fox News Channel.
She said the two will take questions from the American and Mexican press and it will be "up to them" to decide whether they want to make a joint statement. But American reporters who cover Trump regularly expressed concerns on social media about Trump's decision not to bring his regular press corps with him.
El Universal, a major newspaper, reported the arrival, quoting airport sources, and said Trump would travel by helicopter from the airport's presidential hangar to the presidential palace in Mexico City.
Peña Nieto has sharply condemned Trump for repeatedly declaring that Mexico is sending predatory killers and rapists into America, but he is now the target of condemnation at home for extending an invitation to Trump last Friday. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton also received an invitation but has not arranged a meeting yet.
Speaking at the American Legion convention in Cincinnati, Clinton went after Trump, saying coalition building and leadership will take more than a "photo-op."
"It certainly takes more than trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again. That is not how it works," she said without naming her rival.
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