Trump Waves Paper He Says Is Secret Deal With Mexico, but Reveals No Details – The New York Times

The president offered a series of confusing and contradictory statements, saying repeatedly that Mexico would have to submit the agreement to “their congress” while simultaneously saying that he has the power to impose it unilaterally if he wants to.

“If they bring the numbers way down, we won’t have to, but this is my option,” Mr. Trump said. “It goes into effect when I want it to, but I have a lot of respect for the president of Mexico. I have a lot of respect for the people we dealt with, so I don’t want to do that, and they have to go back to congress to get that approved.”

Moments later, he said that “it will go into effect when Mexico tells me its O.K. to release it.”

Mr. Trump and his aides have repeatedly referred to a “secret agreement” since Sunday morning when he first said on Twitter that a yet-to-be-revealed deal was reached with Mexico and would be “announced at the appropriate time.”

Since then, aides have refused to elaborate, saying that it was up to the president to decide whether to say more about it.

Because of Mr. Trump’s mention of approval by Mexico’s congress, Mexican officials and others have said they believe the president is referring to discussions about changes to the region’s asylum rules, which Mexico has said it would consider if the flow of migrants to the United States is not reduced over the next several months.

But Mr. Ebrard insisted on Monday that such a deal has not been reached with the United States, saying only that the two sides have agreed to potentially revisit the issue in the future.