Top US officials to visit Mexico

By Nancy Caouette

MEXICO CITY (AA) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security chief John Kelly will visit Mexico next week, Mexican authorities announced Wednesday.

Mexico’s Foreign Affairs ministry said in a statement the two officials would meet with “various federal government officials”.

It said the Feb. 23 visit was planned during a telephone call between presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and Donald J. Trump late last month and it will “continue to work for a respectful, close and constructive relationship between the two countries”.

Mexico Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray met Tillerson and Kelly in Washington, DC, earlier this month.

Videgaray said following the meeting that matters of security, drug trafficking combat and migration were discussed.

“We agreed that we will have frequent meetings,” he said.

Relations between Mexico and the U.S. has soured since Trump became president in late January.

He campaigned on a promise of deporting undocumented immigrants and also to build a border wall between the two countries that he said he would force Mexico to pay for -- an estimated $8 - $20 billion.