Mexican president denies Trump's claims of praising border policy

PanARMENIAN.Net - Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Monday, July 31 he had not recently spoken to Donald Trump on the phone, after the US leader boasted his counterpart had called him to praise his border policy, AFP reports.

Trump made the comments as he presented his new chief of staff, former Homeland Security secretary John Kelly, who is tasked with restoring order to a White House beset by scandal, infighting and legislative defeats.

"At Homeland, what he has done has been nothing short of miraculous," Trump said of Kelly.

"As you know, the border was a tremendous problem and they're close to 80 percent stoppage. And even the president of Mexico called me -- they said their southern border, very few people are coming because they know they're not going to get through our border, which is the ultimate compliment."

Pena Nieto's office rejected that account.

"President Enrique Pena Nieto has not recently communicated with President Donald Trump by phone," it said in a statement.

It said the two leaders had last discussed migration issues when they met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany on July 7.

At the time, it said, Pena Nieto shared Mexican figures showing that 31 percent fewer Mexicans had been deported from the United States in the first half of 2017 compared to the year before, and that 47 percent fewer migrants had entered Mexico from Central and South America.