A "new chapter" has opened in Mexico's relationship with the United States after the election of Donald Trump, President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday, according to dpa. Nieto said that he had offered his congratulations to Trump and his family in a telephone call, in which he reiterated that the two nations were "allies, partners and nations." During the election campaign Trump described Mexicans as criminals and pledged to build a wall on the border with Mexico, for which Mexico would bear the costs. He also said he would renegotiate the NAFTA trade deal. "We agreed that we need to work toward a relationship of trust, because our countries are important to each other," Pena Nieto told Mexicans in a speech broadcast on television. "If the US is doing well, Mexico will be fine - and vice versa," he said. Mexico's foreign minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, said on broadcaster Televisa, "Our relationship to the USA does not end with the triumph of Donald Trump." In August, Pena Nieto invited both Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to visit Mexico. Only Trump accepted and Pena Nieto came under heavy fire for hosting him. Leaders in other parts of Latin America expressed confidence that their countries could work with Trump. "I have said in the past that relations between Brazil and the US, as with all other countries, are institutional," Brazilian President Michel Temer wrote on Twitter. "I am certain that [Trump's win] changes nothing in Brazilian-US ties," he said. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos also congratulated Trump on Twitter and vowed to "keep deepening bilateral relations" between the two traditional allies under the new president.
