What Donald Trump Has Said About Mexico and Vice Versa

Donald Trump is traveling to Mexico today to meet privately with the country's president, just hours before the Republican presidential nominee is slated to deliver a formal speech focused on immigration.

Mexico has been a contentious talking point in Trump's campaign. Here's a look back at some of the controversial remarks Trump has made about the country and its people, and vice versa.

What Trump's Said About Mexico

While formally announcing his presidential bid on June 16, 2015, Trump said Mexico was sending people bringing crime and "rapists" across the border into the United States.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Trump then defended those comments in a statement on July 6, 2015. "The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc. This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a five-time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn't want him in Mexico. This is merely one of thousands of similar incidents throughout the United States."

During his first Republican primary debate of the 2016 presidential race on Aug. 6, 2015, Trump told Fox News' Chris Wallace that the Mexican government was intentionally sending undocumented criminals. "Our leaders are stupid, our politicians are stupid, and the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning, and they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them, they don't want to take care of them," he said.

Trump has also repeatedly questioned whether federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel could be impartial in presiding over two lawsuits against the real estate mogul's Trump University. Trump has said Curiel's "Mexican" heritage makes him biased. Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican parents.

"I think the judge has been extremely hostile to me. I think it has to do with perhaps the fact that I'm very, very strong on the border. Very, very strong on the border. And he has been extremely hostile to me," Trump said in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News on Feb. 28. "Now, he is Hispanic, I believe."

Trump blasted Curiel again during a rally in San Diego on May 27, saying, "I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He's a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel and he is not doing the right thing.... So what happens is the judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great. I think that's fine."

The Republican presidential nominee later walked back his remarks on Curiel in a statement released June 7: "It is unfortunate that my comments have been misconstrued as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage. I am friends with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent. The American justice system relies on fair and impartial judges. All judges should be held to that standard. I do not feel that one's heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial."

Trump has also engaged in a contentious back-and-forth with former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has been critical of the real estate mogul and his scheduled trip to Mexico.

Former President Vicente Fox, who is railing against my visit to Mexico today, also invited me when he apologized for using the "f bomb."

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2016Fox responded:

What Mexicans Have Said About Trump

In a Feb. 25 interview with Jorge Ramos on Fusion, Fox responded to Trump's plan to build a wall between Mexico and the United States and get Mexico to pay for it, calling the Republican presidential nominee "egocentric."

"I'm not going to pay for that f---ing wall! He should pay for it. He's got the money," the former Mexican president said. "What is Trump? He's not a Republican. Absolutely not. Those are not the Republican principles. He's not a Democrat. He is just himself. He is egocentric."

Fox decried Trump's visit to Mexico in an interview with CNN this morning just hours ahead of Trump's scheduled meeting with the country's president.

"Trump is using Mexico, is using President Peña to push his sinking poll numbers," Fox said on CNN's "New Day". "So it's a very opportunistic move and I hope U.S. public opinion, U.S. citizens can see this and finally, and finally see what is behind Trump, this false prophet that is just cheating everybody."

Mexico's current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has also said his country will not pay for the wall. In an interview published in the Excélsior newspaper on March 7, Peña Nieto likened Trump's "strident" rhetoric to that of dictators like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

"There is no scenario," Peña Nieto said when asked by Excélsior whether Mexico would ever pay for the proposed wall. "Of course I can't agree with this American politician's position."

Peña Nieto continued by attacking the tone of Trump's campaign. "And there have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of this strident rhetoric have only led to very ominous situations in the history of humanity," he told the newspaper. "That's how Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in. They took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis."

Ramos said on CNN Tuesday night that Trump's meeting with the president could be a sign that he's "in panic mode when it comes to Latinos." Trump once had the Mexican-American journalist removed from a campaign news conference in Iowa for asking questions about his proposed immigration policies.

"It doesn't matter what he says tomorrow, he already lost the Latino vote," Ramos told CNN.