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German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets Saturday, June 10, 2017, with those attending the PopUp Tour in Mexico City, including members of the German community in Mexico, to whom she spoke about her love for science. EFE/Sashenka Gutierrez
German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets Saturday, June 10, 2017, with those attending the PopUp Tour in Mexico City, including members of the German community in Mexico, to whom she spoke about her love for science. EFE/Sashenka Gutierrez

Angela Merkel in Mexico Condemns Building Walls

During official visit to Mexico City, the German Chancellor said walls are no answer to migration and lent support to Mexico over NAFTA

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Mexico City this weekend, where she had time to meet with politicians and members of the German community in Mexico. 

Although she avoided to mention US President Donald Trump and his border wall directly, she said "history showed that migration pressures were resolved only when empires got on well with their neighbours, " as reported in the BBC.

A former research scientist with a doctorate in physical chemistry, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was born and raised in communist East Germany during the cold War, under the influence of the USSR. (the two Germany reunited in 1989, after the Berlin wall fall). 

"Obviously the main reason for people leaving must be addressed on site first, which means that putting up walls and cutting oneself off will not solve the problem," she said during a meeting with Mexican counterpart, Enrique Peña-Nieto. 

The reunification of Germany provoked a big flow of immigration to West Germany, which made tremendous economic and investment efforts to develop their eastern fellows. Now the former eastern germany has achieved the standard levels of the west,  with cities like Berlin or Leipzig,  new centers of economic innovation,  are a good example. 

In the last years, Germany has also opened its door to more than one million refugees from the Middle East, especially from Syria, a measure the US President Donald Trump has openly critized, for being an attempt to European security. 

President Trump has also criticized Germany for "stealing American jobs" by making unfair trade policies. He said Germany's powerful automotive industry makes unfair competition to American automakers and thus they should pay extra traxes, especially if they produce the cars in Mexico and then sell them in the American market. 

During an event at the Interactive Economy Museum, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Merkel made declarations on trade.  

According to the BBC, Angela Merkel backed Mexico's free trade position ahead of talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between Mexico, the US and Canada.

Peña Nieto added that "the size and dynamism of the German economy, added to the macrostability and transformative process Mexico is going through, is and will be a winning combination in the coming years."

The German chancellor also took the occasion to visit PopUp Tour, an event that welcomes cultural and scientific activities at the foot of Mexico City's Monument to the Revolution, Merkel told the people gathered for the occasion, mostly Germans living in the Mexican capital, that for her, science and entertainment are one and the same, as reported in EFE.

"I believe it's a very positive thing if we can understand why the world is the way it is. We can spend our lives asking how an electric current works, what things are made of, why the sun rises in the morning, why the sky is blue. And if I find an answer for all of them, that's a really good thing, and it can be a lot of fun," she said.

She said that when she was a physics student at Leipzig University between 1973-1978 in the now-extinct German Democratic Republic, where she took her doctorate with a thesis on quantum chemistry, her problem was always that "I was better at the theoretical part than with the practical exercises."

"When we had to solder pieces of metal, it never came out very well," she said to the laughter of all present.

Finally, before business owners and executives of both countries, Chancellor Merkel invited Mexican companies to visit the 2018 Hannover Industrial Fair, at which Mexico will be the guest nation. 

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