Yes, you can have anyone you want at your place. But it is an insult for the Mexican citizenship to have Donald Trump over for a chat at Mexico’s main official residence, Los Pinos, even if he is the candidate of the Republican Party for President of the United States. And this is exactly what Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto has done. 

As it has been extensively reported, Trump has vilified the Mexican people during the last year, identifying them indiscriminately with rape and burglaries. Trump has promised that, if he ever becomes the U.S. President, he will order a wall be built to further set the two countries apart. And Mexico will pay for it, says Trump.

Such stupidity has been denounced to the North and South of the Rio Grande, even by members of the American Republican party. They know  the United States would come to an immediate stop if the millions of Mexicans who live here were to leave the country. 

Trump’s political opponent for the U.S. Presidency, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has warned about how dangerous it is to insult in such manner a vital partner for Washington, as Mexico is. And while the former first lady does not have much to boast about in this debate – after all she voted twice for building the wall currently erected between the two countries some time ago - now she has realized how damaging Trump’s statements can be. 

It is worth pointing out that the growth of Mexican emigration towards the United States is already negative, as the Pew Research Center wrote in an essay earlier this year. The improvement of working conditions in Mexico, the collapse of the U.S. real estate market and the vicious attitude of conservatives in Washington towards Mexico has stopped the flow of Mexicans to the North. 

Nonetheless Peña Nieto has invited Trump to the Los Pinos residence as to find “common places to get closer together” in an unusual gesture that shows great political clumsiness. In a different political scenario, I would celebrate the Mexican President's drive to solve problems. You tackle issues by talking to people. You make peace with the enemy.

But Peña Nieto doesn’t seem to realize that Trump has played him. Trump needed to change the dynamics of his previous statements about immigration, that have left him ostracized at the polls among the vast majority of Hispanics. And he has skillfully used Peña Nieto to change these dynamics. Embraced by a Mexican President and making the most of a television format devoted to a head of State, Trump has used Peña Nieto, who has fallen into the trap of legitimizing the discourse of fear and protectionism attached to the intellectually deficient American tycoon. 

Trump ran the show, not allowing a single question from Mexican journalists on Mexican grounds during a bizarre press conference where only those journalists coming from the United States had the chance to speak out loud. 

Peña Nieto may have had something in mind too. He is so unpopular that the gamble of having Trump over makes him news material into the international scene, at least for a 24 hour cycle. Peña Nieto justified himself claiming that Hillary Clinton has also been invited over at Los Pinos. But these lame justifications don’t win over a stunned citizenship facing the last Copernican turn of the PRI President.

The Peña Nieto miracle of his first two years as president is over. He won over the country through opaque nationalizations. Now he becomes the heir to a political tradition that with 7 decades of power in the last 100 years seems to have not filled yet his appetite for controversy. 

A plagiarized college dissertation, his purchase of a mansion in Mexico City with his celebrity wife using non declared assets, the designation of diplomats dodging the control of the Senate of the Republic - ask the Barcelona diplomatic community about the Mexican consul in the Catalan capital - and - talking about the U.S.-Mexican relationship - how Peña Nieto has neglected the Mexican Embassy in Washington! When Trump rose in popularity its tenant kept an unjustifiable silence.  

The Mexican Senate Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Gabriela Cuevas is devastated facing this situation. And it is not only a matter of a political rivalry, after all Cuevas belongs to the PAN political party. How does Peña justify its controversial invitation to a fear mongering individual that humiliates the Mexican people?  How come Peña doesn’t face these political misdemeanors in public? 

Peña Nieto is guilty for honoring an impossible meeting and for not imposing a political and diplomatic toll on a political fool willing to show off just for personal gain.