White press secretary Sean Spicer insisted on Wednesday that relations between the United States and Mexico are "phenomenal" as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson flies to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Spicer's declaration during his daily press briefing on Wednesday came after NBC News asked if the trip was a "clean-up job" to quell anger over Trump's hardball stance on immigration.
"The relationship with Mexico is phenomenal right now," Spicer said. "I think there is an unbelievable and robust dialogue between our two nations."
He also referred to the U.S.-Mexico relations as "healthy."
This week, the Trump administration unveiled a new plan that enlarges the pool of immigrants who are eligible to be deported and how they will be returned to the country from which they arrived, not their country of origin.
Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray has said his government "will not accept" the new scheme.
Tillerson flies to Mexico City on Wednesday for a two-day visit and will meet with Nieto and Mexico's ministers of interior, foreign relations, finance and defense to discuss border security, law enforcement cooperation and trade.
Mexico has been grappling with Trump's plan to build a 10-foot-high wall at the U.S.-Mexico border — a project the commander in chief insists Mexicans will pay for.
On Monday, Mexico's National Regeneration Movement leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador accused Nieto of not wanting to confront Trump and has "acted submissively" to the country's detriment, The PanAm Post reported.
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