The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said on Saturday that putting up walls would not solve problems due to immigration, challenging the vision of Donald Trump during her visit to Mexico.
Speaking in Mexico City alongside the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, Merkel said history showed only when empires have gotten on well with their neighbors have migration pressures been resolved in a way that ensured stability.
“Putting up walls and cutting oneself off will not solve the problem,” said Merkel, who has come under political pressure in her own country for opening its borders to more than one million refugees since 2015.
The key was to improve living standards and opportunities in afflicted areas, she noted.
Trump built his bid for the presidency partly on a pledge to raise a wall on the US-Mexico border that would stop illegal immigration and the flow of drugs.
Trump has backed away from a promise to make Mexico pay for the cost of the wall and he has had to pare back his ambitions in seeking funds to build the barrier from the US Congress, where Democrats and even some Republicans have criticized the plan.
In another counterpoint to Trump, Merkel and Peña Nieto together affirmed their commitment to free trade during the German leader’s visit to Latin America’s second-biggest economy. Peña Nieto said Mexico would ensure that foreign investment in his country remained protected in talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).
Trump has repeatedly attacked Germany and Mexico over their trade surpluses with the US and he has vowed to withdraw from Nafta if he cannot renegotiate it in favor of the US.
Major German manufacturers have factories in both Mexico and the United States, including carmakers such as Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler.
