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| Trump unimpressed with US-Mexico trade talks | Trump unimpressed with US-Mexico trade talks |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| US President Donald Trump has said "not nearly enough" progress is being made in negotiations with Mexico to avert his threatened tariffs. | US President Donald Trump has said "not nearly enough" progress is being made in negotiations with Mexico to avert his threatened tariffs. |
| Trump administration officials hosted Mexico's foreign minister at the White House on Wednesday, and they will meet again on Thursday. | |
| Mr Trump said import duties of 5% will take effect next Monday unless Mexico stems the migrant flow into the US. | Mr Trump said import duties of 5% will take effect next Monday unless Mexico stems the migrant flow into the US. |
| Those numbers reached their highest level in more than a decade last month. | Those numbers reached their highest level in more than a decade last month. |
| What happened in the negotiations? | |
| US Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks with Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard at the White House on Wednesday, but the meeting ended without agreement. | |
| Mr Ebrard told a news conference afterwards that tariffs were not even discussed. | |
| "The dialogue was focused on migration flows and what Mexico is doing or is proposing to the United States, our concern about the Central American situation," he said. | |
| The US president, who is in Europe for World War Two commemorations, warned on Twitter that the tariffs would go ahead next Monday without a breakthrough. | |
| Republican senators have been speaking out against the planned Mexico tariffs, which Mr Trump announced last week on Twitter, catching his party and the financial markets unawares. | |
| Under his proposal, duties would rise by 5% every month on goods including cars, beer, tequila, fruit and vegetables, reaching 25% by October. | |
| The Republican president wants Mexico to stop the hundreds of thousands of mostly Central American migrants who have been seeking entry to the US this year. | |
| White House trade adviser Peter Navarro had raised hopes earlier on Wednesday of a possible rapprochement. | |
| He told CNN "we believe that these tariffs may not have to go into effect, precisely because we have the Mexicans' attention". | |
| Mr Navarro said Mr Trump wants Mexico to commit to take all asylum seekers and to divert more resources to its own southern border with Guatemala. | |
| America is already embattled in a trade war with China that has seen tit-for-tat duties imposed on imports. | |
| What's the situation on the US-Mexico border? | |
| The stakes were raised on Wednesday as US Customs and Border Protection announced that migrant arrests had surged in May to the highest level in more than a decade. | |
| Border Patrol apprehended 132,887 migrants attempting to enter the US from Mexico in May, marking a 33% increase from the month before. | |
| It said 84,542 were families and 11,507 unaccompanied children. | |
| The arrests were the highest monthly total since Mr Trump took office. | |
| Another 11,391 migrants were deemed "inadmissible" and turned away after arriving at US ports of entry, bringing the overall figure to 144,278. | |
| "We are in a full-blown emergency, and I cannot say this stronger, the system is broken," said acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders. | |
| How do the numbers compare with previous years? | |
| Official figures show illegal border crossings have been in decline since 2000. | |
| In 2000, 1.6 million people were apprehended trying to cross the border illegally - that number was just under 400,000 in 2018. | |
| In 2017, Mr Trump's first year in office, the figures were the lowest they had been since 1971. | |
| The decline was in large part due to a dip in the number of people coming from Mexico. | |
| In the last two years, however, the number of arrests has been rising again, especially in recent months. |