Trump threatens to cancel meeting with Mexico's president if country won't pay for wall Trump threatens to cancel meeting with Mexico's president if country won't pay for wall

President Donald Trump. Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Thursday morning said "it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting" planned next week with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto if Mexico "is unwilling to pay" for a wall on its border with the US.

"The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico," Trump wrote on Twitter. "It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost."

Trump continued: "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting."

Peña Nieto is scheduled to meet with Trump on Tuesday in what would be the duo's first bilateral meeting since the new US administration took office.

Building a wall on the US-Mexico border was one of the chief promises Trump made to the American people during the 2016 campaign. He repeatedly promised that he would use trade advantages held by the US to force Mexico to finance it.

Trump said in an interview with ABC News broadcast Wednesday that he would like construction of the barrier to begin within "months."

At the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, Trump signed two executive orders related to immigration and the construction of the wall. He told department employees that the moves would help "restore the rule of law."

"A nation without borders is not a nation," Trump said. "Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control as it gets back its borders."

During his interview with ABC News, Trump dodged the question when anchor David Muir pressed him on whether American taxpayers would initially foot the bill for construction of the wall.

"All it is is we'll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico," Trump said.

Muir mentioned that Peña Nieto had said he would refuse to pay for the wall, but Trump stood firm.

"I think he has to say that. He has to say that," Trump said. "But I'm just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form, and you have to understand what I'm doing is good for the United States. It's also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico."

Speaker Paul Ryan told MSNBC on Wednesday that there were "a lot of different ways" the US could compel Mexico to "contribute" to the costs associated with building the wall.

Business Insider's Pamela Engel contributed to this story.