As the aftershocks of his campaign launch attack on Mexico and Mexicans rumbled on, Donald Trump used an interview on Sunday to say “I love Mexico”.
The business mogul-turned-White House hopeful subsequently said, however, that once in office he would if necessary do “something very severe” to make Mexico pay for his promised border wall between the two countries.
Launching his bid for the Republican nomination in 2016 at his business HQ in New York, Trump was discussing his views on immigration when he said: “[Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and their rapists.”
Responses included official condemnation, the withdrawal by TV network Univision from Trump’s Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, a golf course ban and the creation in Mexico of a Donald Trump piñata.
On Sunday, Trump spoke to CNN in a pre-recorded interview in which he repeatedly insisted he was a serious candidate for the White House. The former host of The Apprentice said giving up that job to run showed his seriousness.
He also discussed his views on key issues such as same-sex marriage – married three times, he is for “traditional marriage” – bipartisanship, Hillary Clinton, global warming – “I’m not a huge believer in the phenomenon” – and, most importantly, the art of negotiation.
“China have much better and smarter negotiators than we do,” he said, while discussing deals on trade and global carbon emissions. “We don’t have that, and that’s part of the reason I’m doing this. I did write The Art of the Deal, in all fairness.”
On Mexico and Mexicans, meanwhile, Trump slightly modified his charge.
“I like Mexico, I love the Mexican people, I do business with Mexico,” he said. “But you have people coming through the border who are from all over and they’re bad, they’re really bad … We have people coming in and I’m not just talking Mexicans, who are killers, they’re rapists, they are people we don’t want in this country.”
Host Jake Tapper noted the government of Mexico had called Trump’s comments prejudicial and absurd.
“Mexico has not treated us well,” Trump said. “Mexico treats us as though we are stupid people, which of course our leaders are. I don’t blame them. China’s even worse.”
Asked how he would force Mexico to build his promised anti-immigrant wall, he said: “I would force them because we give them a fortune. Mexico makes a fortune because of us. A wall is a tiny little peanut compared to that. I would do something very severe unless they contributed or gave us the money to build the wall. I would build it. I’m very good at building things.”
Trump’s building work on his campaign has led him to second place in polls of Republican contenders in New Hampshire, a key early voting state. In his wide-ranging interview with CNN, he responded to questions about his persistent criticism of the frontrunner, former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
He said: “I like him. He’s a nice person. I actually felt bad one day because I’d hit him so hard.” He added that he knew Bush took him seriously, because Bush’s people “do call and they write”.
Returning to his approach to foreign policy, Trump then said: “I really think [Bush] is a nice man, a wonderful man, but I don’t know if I want him negotiating with Isis.
“I think Trump can do a lot better. You think so too but you’re not going to say it.”
