Mexico Dispatches Team to Washington to Negotiate Illegal Immigration Tariffs

President Donald Trump (L) answers questions on the comments of special counsel Robert Mueller while departing the White House in Washington, on May 30,2019. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (R) at a press conference at the National Palace, in Mexico City, on May 31, 2019. Ginnette Riquelme/AP

MEXICO CITY—Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that Mexico won’t respond to President Donald Trump’s threat of coercive tariffs with desperation, but instead will push for dialogue.

A day after Trump’s threat to impose a 5 percent tariff—that could increase incrementally to 25 percent—on all Mexican imports, López Obrador seemed convinced that Trump just needed to be informed of all that Mexico has been doing to slow illegal immigration, and he dispatched Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to Washington Friday.