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As ties with Mexico fray, Kushner works quietly to mend them

WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump complained that the $1.3 trillion spending bill he grudgingly signed Friday did not pay for his border wall, he kept alive an issue that has poisoned relations between the United States and Mexico from the day he took office.

Trump did not repeat his demand that Mexico must pay for the wall. Kushner, people who work with him say, has asked the president to refrain from using that line. He also lobbied Trump to exempt the country from new steel and aluminum tariffs, and to renegotiate, rather than rip up, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The well-meaning interventions of Kushner and his wife, Ivanka, with Trump are a familiar — and to some critics, overblown — theme of this administration. Their influence has been questioned ever since Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accord last year over their objections.

But on the issue of Mexico, allies of Kushner and Mexican government officials say he has worked behind the scenes, with some success, to preserve a relationship that has been corroded by Trump’s bitter clashes with President Enrique Peña Nieto over the wall.

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Next week, during a visit to Mexico by the secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, the two countries will sign the first two of about two dozen agreements that are the fruits of Kushner’s personal diplomacy with Mexico’s foreign minister, Luis Videgaray.

The agreements — one that creates joint inspections to stop the flow of drugs and other contraband across the border, and another that uses technology to speed up the inspections of legal cargo — are much less visible than either the wall or the disputed provisions in NAFTA.

But they show that Mexico and the United States can still work together. White House officials said that in the coming weeks, the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies would announce more agreements on energy cooperation, infrastructure and economic development in Central American countries, aiming at stemming the flow of migrants, through Mexico, into the United States.

“It’s true — Jared has been a positive influence,” said Gerónimo Gutiérrez, Mexico’s ambassador to Washington. “Our dialogue is not limited to the White House. However, if we didn’t have that dialogue with Mr. Kushner, the relationship would be much worse off.”

For Kushner, progress on Mexico would be a bright spot in what has been a difficult stretch. He was recently stripped of his top-secret security clearance and faces a hostile reception from Palestinians to his Middle East peace plan after Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. His future in the White House is regularly scrutinized, though he has told colleagues he is not going anywhere.

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Kushner’s aides acknowledge his work could be overshadowed by a breakdown in talks over NAFTA. The two countries are in the final stages of negotiations, with officials from both sides putting the odds of a deal at no better than 50-50. Then there is the relationship between Trump and Peña Nieto, which has fallen apart twice during angry telephone exchanges over who should pay for the wall.

This month, Trump dispatched Kushner to Mexico City to mend fences with Peña Nieto after their latest clash prompted the Mexican leader to cancel a visit to Washington. The Mexican news media harshly criticized Peña Nieto for receiving Kushner, a sign of just how toxic the Trump name has become there.

“I give both of them credit for doing it,” said Jorge Guajardo, a Mexican diplomat who served as his country’s ambassador to China. “In very adverse circumstances, Jared is working to keep things going.”

Still, Guajardo noted that Mexico had long worked with the United States on projects related to the border. These agreements, however useful, cannot repair the damage done by Trump’s inflammatory words about Mexicans crossing the border or his demands that Mexico underwrite the wall.

“We’ve been doing it for a long time, without all the acrimony, without all the attacks, without the president saying that Mexicans are terrible people,” Guajardo said.

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At the heart of Kushner’s involvement with Mexico is the relationship he has cultivated with Videgaray, a close adviser to Peña Nieto who, as finance minister, brokered Trump’s visit to Mexico City during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Kushner was thrilled with that visit, particularly since campaign officials feared it could turn into a public-relations disaster for their candidate. It went less well for Videgaray, who was forced to resign after the Mexican news media savaged the meeting and his role in arranging it. (He later returned as foreign minister.)

Kushner and Videgaray got to know each other during the transition and have talked regularly since. During Trump’s first phone call with Peña Nieto, the two leaders had a rancorous exchange over trade and the wall but agreed that Kushner and Videgaray should draft a statement putting a positive spin on their conversation, according to a transcript that was leaked to The Washington Post.

Trump’s decision to hand the Mexico portfolio to Kushner generated tension with the secretary of state at the time, Rex Tillerson, who objected to the president’s 37-year-old son-in-law taking on what he saw as his duties. On his most recent trip to Mexico, Kushner raised more hackles in the State Department by excluding the U.S. ambassador, Roberta S. Jacobson, from his meeting with the president.

Kushner, aides said, wanted to have a more intimate meeting and besides, they noted, Jacobson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, is stepping down. He did include Kimberly Breier, a State Department official recently nominated as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

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Given Tillerson’s dismissal and the CIA director, Mike Pompeo, who has been nominated to replace him, Kushner will have to contend with a forceful new player in the diplomatic ranks. But his biggest hurdle to improved relations between Mexico and the United States may be the political calendar in both countries.

Mexicans will vote for a new president July 1, likely removing Kushner’s friend, Videgaray, from office. Americans will vote in midterm elections in the fall — the pressure of which, analysts said, could lead Trump to revive the disparaging language about Mexico that first necessitated Kushner’s diplomatic rescue mission.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

MARK LANDLER © 2018 The New York Times

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