WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Mexico relationship Friday, promoting the benefits of trade and friendship.
In a news conference with Pena Nieto at the White House, Obama said trade with Mexico brings important investment and jobs to the U.S. He said the United States sells more to Mexico than to China, India and Russia combined.
"Let me start by saying something that is too often overlooked but bears repeating, especially given some of the heated rhetoric we sometimes hear," Obama said. "The United States values tremendously our enduring partnership with Mexico and our extraordinary ties of family and friendship with the American people."
Obama said he has worked to deepen the relationship during his presidency.
"We're not just strategic and economic partners, we're also neighbors and we're friends," Obama said.
The news conference came the morning after the closing of the Republican National Convention and a speech by GOP nominee Donald Trump, whose demands that Mexico pay for a U.S. border wall and descriptions of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists have offended the neighboring country.
Pena Nieto said a good relationship with the United States is "essential" for his country and said he looks forward to a "frank, open dialogue" with whomever is elected. Pena Nieto avoided questions about the wall but has previously said that Mexico will not pay for the wall Trump proposes.
Pena Nieto said at the news conference that the next U.S. president would "find in Mexico and its government a constructive attitude" no matter who is elected.
"It is the American people who have to decide who the next male or female president will be," he said. "I have expressed absolute respect for this process."
The two men also endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that both countries have signed on to, saying it would make the relationship between their countries even stronger. They said they have learned from the 2-decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has heavily criticized.
Obama said the global economy is a fact and "we're not going to be able to build a wall around that."
The visit comes less than a month after Pena Nieto and Obama met in Canada during a summit of North America's leaders. Obama's meetings with visiting foreign leaders are usually announced weeks in advance, but this visit was announced just last week.
The White House shrugged off suggestions that the visit was timed to highlight differences between Democrats and Republicans, particularly on attitudes toward Hispanics.
"I think it's fair to say that almost anything that President Obama did on Friday would be viewed as a sharp contrast to the agenda that's being put forward by the other side," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. "But in this case, it's been a while since the president has hosted the president of Mexico here at the White House."
Trump has also said Mexican immigrants "have lots of problems" and when they come to the U.S. "they're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Mexicans are invested in the U.S. election outcome at a personal level. About 34 million people in the U.S. -- the equivalent of the entire population of Canada -- trace their origins to Mexico. Thirty-five percent of Mexican adults say they have friends or relatives in the U.S. who they communicate with on a regular basis, according to a November study by the Pew Research Center.
About a dozen protesters gathered outside the White House during Pena Nieto's visit, with signs demanding justice for 43 Mexican college students who disappeared in Mexico's southern state of Guerrero in 2014. The Mexican government's investigation, which concluded that they were killed by a drug gang allied with the mayor and police of a local town, has been criticized by international experts. Another participant held a sign protesting Pena Nieto's education overhaul.
Information for this article was contributed by Darlene Superville and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press and by Angela Greiling Keane, Eric Martin and Mike Dorning of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 07/23/2016