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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Billionaire Carlos Slim said on Friday that Mexico should not fear Donald Trump, seeing opportunities for his country in the U.S. president’s economic policies, and praising Mexicans for uniting behind their government in talks with the northern neighbor.

In a rare news conference, the telecommunications and construction mogul called Trump a negotiator, “not Terminator” and said his repeated attacks on Mexico had united the country, giving President Enrique Pena Nieto “strength” in trade and border security talks.

“This is the most surprising example of national unity that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in my life,” said Slim, who turns 77 on Saturday. He compared Mexicans’ response to that when a devastating earthquake that hit Mexico City in 1985. “We have to back the president of Mexico so he defends our national interests.”

Slim spoke to reporters after Pena Nieto on Thursday canceled a planned Washington summit with Trump following a tweet by the American that he should stay away unless Mexico agreed to pay for a border wall. Aiming to cool tensions, the two presidents spoke for an hour by phone on Friday, and the battered peso currency strengthened.

Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs on Mexican products have ravaged the peso and spread worries about the economy, which is heavily dependent on the U.S. market.

However, Slim, who spoke out against his fellow billionaire during the U.S. election campaign but had dinner with him after the Nov. 8 victory at the polls, said Trump’s policies aimed at growing the U.S. economy would boost Mexico’s growth as well as provide jobs for Mexican laborers living north of the border.

“The circumstances in the United States are very favorable for Mexico,” Slim said, adding that he has not had any communication with Trump’s team since the December dinner.

“It wasn’t a romance,” he joked about the meeting.

TRUMP’S “REGRESSIVE UTOPIAS”

Referring repeatedly to Trump’s books and other writings, Slim argued that people should not be surprised at Trump’s actions because it is all in his book “Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America,” which Slim said he had not finished reading.

“He’s a great negotiator,” Slim said.

He said businesses should not be too worried if Trump’s policies led to the collapse of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) underpinning Mexico’s economy, saying the country could fall back on World Trade Organization tariffs.

He said Mexican workers in the United States would benefit from Trump’s planned infrastructure push, but warned that U.S. protectionism and other policies could hurt American consumers.

“Among these changes is a return to the past, what a dear friend called ‘regressive utopias’,” he said, calling on the United States to focus on advanced manufacturing.

Asked about Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Slim said the best barrier to illegal immigration would be investment that created opportunities and jobs in Mexico.

Before the highly-anticipated news conference, speculation had been growing about whether Slim might try to run for president in 2018, but he poured cold water on that talk.

“I think I can do more on the business side,” he said.

Slim’s largest companies do not have much obvious exposure to any border tax Trump might impose on Mexican imports.

His high-profile holding in the New York Times Co, made him a target during the U.S. campaign, when Trump accused him of using the newspaper to try to help Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton. Slim’s shares have limited voting rights.

Slim on Friday said he had been selling New York Times stock, but his son-in-law later said this was not correct.

At the conference he was flanked by two of his sons, Carlos and Marco Antonio, and his son-in-law, Arturo Elias, with other family members watching. Most of the Slim family’s wealth comes from Latin America-focused telecoms giant America Movil.

America Movil does have a substantial U.S. business called TracFone which sells prepaid phone plans to customers and rents the networks of big operators.

His next largest companies are retail and industrial conglomerate Grupo Carso and Mexico-focused bank Grupo Financiero Inbursa.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Two Florida ports have canceled plans to sign cooperation pacts with Communist-ruled Cuba after state Governor Rick Scott threatened to cancel their funding if they did business with the “Cuban dictatorship.”

The news comes as Cuba watchers are looking closely for signs of how the United States’ fragile detente with Cuba will fare under President Donald Trump.

Trump has threatened to scrap moves to normalize relations, one of former President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy initiatives, if he doesn’t get “a better deal.”

“Disappointed some (Florida ports) would enter into any agreement with Cuban dictatorship,” Scott wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “I will recommend restricting state funds for ports that work with Cuba in my budget.

Port authorities along the U.S. Southern coast are strong proponents of increased trade and travel with Cuba, and some have expressed interest in using Mariel, located on the northwest coast of the Caribbean island, as a transshipment hub.

The Ports of Everglades and Palm Beach had been planning to sign agreements with Cuba during the visit of a Cuban trade delegation this week but said they decided to withdraw the deals.

Port of Everglades spokeswoman Ellen Kennedy said this move would not impact trade with Cuba, which was conducted by tenants rather than the ports themselves.

One of Port Everglades’ tenants, Crowley Maritime Corporation, has been exporting U.S.-made goods including poultry and medicine to Cuba since obtaining a license to do so from the Office of Foreign Asset Control in late 2001.

On Tuesday, Crowley also imported two containers of charcoal from Cuba, the first direct legal import from Cuba to the United States in more than half a century.

Kennedy said the memorandum of understanding had been designed to be a “good will gesture” to form a strong alliance with Cuban ports.

Cuba and the United States have restored diplomatic ties and signed various cooperation agreements since Obama agreed with Cuban President Raul Castro in December 2014 to work to normalize relations.

Obama, a Democrat, used executive orders to circumvent the longstanding U.S. trade embargo on Cuba and ease some restrictions on travel and business. The embargo can only be lifted by the U.S. Congress, which is controlled by Republicans.

Trump, who can reverse Obama’s executive orders, has threatened to end the detente if Cuba does not make further political and other concessions, although he has not specified what these should be.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that evangelical Christians would love his choice to fill an open seat on the Supreme Court, adding that he is pretty certain who it will be but “not 100 percent.”

“I think the person I pick will be big, big,” Trump said, according to a partial transcript of a Christian Broadcasting Network interview set to air in full on Sunday. “I think evangelicals, Christians will love my pick.”

Trump has said he would make his decision this week and announce it next Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that a freeze handed down by President Donald Trump’s White House on new contracts and grants that has led to fears of delays in toxic pollution cleanups would be completely reversed on Friday or at latest on Monday.

The freeze has led to widespread concerns in states and cities about potential delays in efforts to monitor and clean up toxic pollution, particularly lead pollution in drinking water, that would put the health of Americans at risk.

The agency allocates nearly $4 billion annually on projects ranging from cleaning up polluted industrial sites to testing air and water for toxins.

Doug Ericksen, a former Washington state senator who is the EPA’s new communications director, said in an email that $3.8 billion of the $3.9 billion in contracts and grants was cleared on Wednesday night. “The remainder should be cleared today. There might be a very small number left for Monday, but not likely.” 

The EPA has not issued any news releases about ending the freeze, which has led to uncertainty.

On Thursday, a day after Ericksen said the vast majority of the contracts and grants were cleared, five Democratic senators, including Edward Markey and Tom Carper, wrote a letter to Trump “with alarm” urging him to “immediately reverse this troubling action.”

Ericksen said they should rest assured. “No projects are delayed or cut. None. Not sure how much more clear I can be,” he said in the email. 

U.S. Representative Dan Kildee from Flint, Michigan, home to the lead poisoning crisis in drinking water, also wrote to Trump this week asking when the freeze would be lifted. An EPA spokeswoman told Kildee’s office that $100 million in congressional aid would not be affected by the freeze. But Kildee was uncertain whether contracts and grants centering on testing and expertise about the lead crisis would be delayed.

A Kildee spokesman said on Friday that the congressman had still not gotten a written response to his letter from Trump or the EPA.

The EPA sent employees an internal memo late on Friday, seen by Reuters that said it was making progress in lifting the freeze, which it called standard practice during a transition. “As of today, we have completed review of our grant programs,” the memo said. “The review of contracts is nearly complete, with very few contracts still under review,” the memo said, without elaborating.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Cabinet is worth a combined $14 billion, and they are catching flak in recent weeks for confessing an inability to keep track of their vast sums of wealth.

But private bankers who work with the ultra rich say that if they had a dollar for every time a client forgot about a million, they would be, well, almost as rich as their clients.

“We see it all the time,” with new clients, said Chris Walters of GenSpring Family Offices, SunTrust Bank Inc’s <STI.N> branch for clients with more than $50 million in assets. “It’s not that they are surprised they own the asset. They just omitted it in the inventory.”

Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N> partner who is Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Treasury Department, was grilled by members of the Senate last week for inadvertently failing to disclose more than $100 million in real estate.

On Tuesday, the nominee for head of the budget office, Mick Mulvaney, said he did not realize he needed to pay $15,000 in federal taxes for a nanny until scrutinizing his finances more closely for confirmation proceedings.

Trump himself said in an interview with Reuters last March that he does not pay much attention to his own investments in hedge funds and mutual funds.

“I have no idea how they are doing. I don’t really care,” Trump said. “I’m in a lot of things. I may be in a few funds. I have no idea if they are up or down. I just know that they have been very good over a period of time.”

Trump’s lawyer Sheri Dillon has since said that he has liquidated all of his investments.

Senate leadership has delayed confirmation hearings for three other wealthy Trump nominees to allow more time for nominees to file disclosures and to accommodate schedules.

In response to questions about how people with millions or billions of dollars who hire experts to carefully tally their vast wealth could lose track of such big chunks of money, private bankers and family office managers said their clients simply live much more complicated financial lives than ordinary people.

About one-in-five people with more than $25 million in assets hire advisers to take care of tasks like paying daily bills, managing staff at multiple homes and keeping track of assets around the globe, according to a report by research firm Spectrem. Advisers say their clients need this type of assistance because they work, socialize and travel too frequently to take care of mundane tasks themselves.

Eileen Foley, head of Bank of New York Mellon Corp’s <BK.N> family office business, said that some clients want daily reports detailing every dollar that goes in and out of each account. They also ask for daily reports on investments, tangible assets, properties and liabilities.

When a client is nominated for a position on the board of a public company or in government, this type of daily monitoring can help she said: “It’s not a fire drill.”

But even with that type of due diligence, clients often forget to mention assets held by multiple people, like limited partnerships. Those structures are harder for advisers to discover in financial statements, because they are often structured to keep ownership opaque.

Mnuchin, for instance, failed to disclose around $900,000 worth of artwork held by his children, according to media reports. Mnuchin did not respond to requests for comment. He also did not initially disclose homes in New York, Los Angeles and Mexico.

The complexity of a rich person’s financial life usually builds over time as they acquire houses and collections and other belongings, advisers said.

In many cases, if a client has not been forced to detail all their assets or confirm that every domestic employee has insurance coverage, then they probably have not done it, said Bill Woodson, head of North American family offices at Citigroup Inc’s <C.N> private bank.

“It’s understandable why” they forget, he said. “It doesn’t excuse it.”

(This story corrects spelling of flak in first paragraph).

(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts; Additional reporting by Lawrence Delevingne; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Lisa Shumaker)

(Reuters) – New Jersey prosecutors on Friday said they would not pursue criminal misconduct charges against Governor Chris Christie in connection with the “Bridgegate” scandal.

The Office of the Bergen County Prosecutor said in a letter to a local judge it did not have sufficient evidence to prove allegations that Christie knew about a plot to close lanes at the George Washington Bridge in 2013 in order to punish a local mayor for failing to endorse Christie’s re-election bid.

“The reason is simple, but compelling – that charge cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” the letter said.

Bill Brennan, a retired firefighter and activist who announced he would run for governor this year, filed the citizen complaint against Christie last September.

Two former Christie allies were convicted last year of orchestrating the lane closure plot, and U.S. prosecutors introduced evidence at trial suggesting the governor was at least aware of the scheme. Christie has steadfastly denied that he knew about the closures at the time.

Roy McGeady, a municipal judge in Fort Lee, had found probable cause to allow the case against Christie to proceed after a hearing at which Brennan testified. Christie’s lawyer was not permitted to argue or cross-examine, McGeady said, because the governor was not a defendant until probable cause was established.

Bergen County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Mizdol rejected Christie’s subsequent request to toss the complaint outright. But she agreed with both Christie’s lawyers and county prosecutors that McGeady erroneously denied the governor’s attorney an opportunity to participate.

The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office said in the letter that citizen complaints typically allege minor crimes of which the complainant has personal knowledge. The letter said criminal misconduct was far outside that scope.

“In short, a matter of this gravity should not have been heard by a municipal court judge,” the letter said.

Brian Murray, a spokesman for Christie, applauded the decision on Friday.

“The Governor is gratified that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office has ended this baseless fiasco began by Mr. Brennan and perpetuated by Judge McGeady,” Murray said in a statement. “It is right and appropriate that this injustice against the Governor is finally over.”

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter as a plunge in shipments of soybeans weighed on exports, but steady consumer spending and rising business investment pointed to sustained strength in domestic demand.

Gross domestic product increased at a 1.9 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Friday in its first estimate of fourth-quarter GDP. The economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter.

The slowdown masked a surge in home building spending and a rebound in business investment on equipment after four straight quarterly declines.

The economy expanded 1.6 percent for all of 2016, the worst performance since 2011, as it struggled with weak oil prices, a strong dollar and efforts by businesses to reduce a large inventory overhang.

U.S. President Donald Trump vowed during last year’s election campaign to deliver 4 percent annual GDP growth, largely on the back of a plan to cut taxes, reduce regulations and increase infrastructure spending.

“The details of the report were quite sound. The U.S. economic expansion got its mojo back and the momentum appears to be carrying over into 2017,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco.

A measure of private domestic demand increased at a 2.8 percent rate last quarter. Economic growth in the third quarter was driven in part by an outsized jump in soybean exports.

Excluding soybeans, GDP increased at about a 2.7 percent rate in both the third and fourth quarters, according to analysts. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rising at a 2.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter.

In the first half of 2016, weak corporate profits because of cheaper oil and the robust dollar undercut business spending. The inventory correction resulted in companies placing fewer orders with manufacturers. The economy grew 2.6 percent in 2015.

With oil prices rising and global demand picking up, the economy appears set for continued expansion. A labor market at or near full employment also is starting to lift wages and is supporting consumer spending.

Although Trump has offered little detail on his economic policy, his promises have been embraced by consumers, businesses and investors. Consumer and business confidence have soared, while the U.S. stock market has rallied to record highs.

A separate report on Friday showed consumer sentiment hitting a 13-year high in January.

“While the size and the timing of the tax cut, infrastructure spending and regulatory rollback are uncertain, economic growth could double during the second half of the year,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo.

But uncertainty over the Trump administration’s trade policy and sustained dollar strength pose a risk to the economy.

SOYBEANS REVERSAL

In the fourth quarter, exports fell at a 4.3 percent rate, reversing the 10 percent increase notched in the third quarter. The fourth-quarter drop in exports was the biggest since the first quarter of 2015.

At the same time, rising domestic demand drew in imports, which increased at their quickest pace in two years. The resulting trade deficit sliced 1.70 percentage points from GDP growth, the biggest drag since the second quarter of 2010.

Most of the hit came from soybean exports, which fired up GDP growth in the third quarter after a poor harvest in Argentina and Brazil. Trade added 0.85 percentage point to GDP in the third quarter.

The dollar <.DXY> firmed against a basket of currencies. Stocks on Wall Street were trading mostly lower after surging to record highs during the week. Prices for U.S. government debt rose.

A stronger economy would mean further interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank has forecast three rate hikes this year. It raised its benchmark overnight interest rate in December by 25 basis points to a range of 0.50 percent to 0.75 percent.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 2.5 percent rate in the fourth quarter. The moderation from the third quarter’s brisk 3.0 percent pace came amid modest household income gains.

Income at the disposal of households after accounting for taxes and inflation increased 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter after rising 2.6 percent rise in the prior period. Savings fell to $791.2 billion from $818.1 billion in the third quarter.

With domestic demand rising, businesses accumulated inventories at a rate of $48.7 billion in the last quarter, up from $7.1 billion in the third quarter. Inventories added 1.0 percentage point to GDP growth, double the contribution in the third quarter.

Business investment pushed higher, with spending on equipment increasing at a 3.1 percent rate, the first increase in over a year. The gain reflected a surge in gas and oil well drilling, in tandem with rising crude oil prices.

Spending on mining exploration, wells and shafts increased at a 24.3 percent rate after declining at a 30.0 percent pace in the third quarter. Energy services firm Baker Hughes said last Friday that U.S. energy companies added 29 oil rigs in the week to Jan. 20, bringing the total count to 551 – the most since November 2015.

Investment in nonresidential structures, however, fell at a 5.0 percent pace in the fourth quarter after rising at a 12.0 percent rate in the prior period.

Investment in home building rose at a 10.2 percent rate, rebounding after two straight quarterly declines. Government spending picked up as a rise in state and local government investment offset a decline in federal government expenditures.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New commercial satellite imagery indicates North Korea has resumed operation of a reactor at its main nuclear site used to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons program, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.

Washington’s 38 North North Korea monitoring project said previous analysis from Jan. 18 showed signs that North Korea was preparing to restart the reactor at Yongbyon, having unloaded spent fuel rods for reprocessing to produce additional plutonium for its nuclear weapons stockpile.

“Imagery from January 22 shows a water plume (most probably warm) originating from the cooling water outlet of the reactor, an indication that the reactor is very likely operating,” it said in a report.

It said it was impossible to estimate at what power level the reactor was running, “although it may be considerable.” A 38 North Korea report last week said operations at the reactor had been suspended since late 2015.

North Korea has maintained its nuclear and missile programs in violation of repeated rounds of international sanctions.

News of the apparent reactor restart comes at a time of rising concern about North Korea’s weapons programs, which could present the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump with its first major crisis.

A report by leading U.S.-based nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker published by 38 North last September estimated North Korea had stockpiles of 32 to 54 kg (70 to 119 pounds) of plutonium, enough for 6 to 8 bombs, and had the capacity to produce 6 kg, or approximately one bomb’s worth, per year.

North Korea also produces highly enriched uranium for atomic bombs and would have sufficient fissile material for approximately 20 bombs by the end of last year, and the capacity to produce seven more a year, that report said.

In a New Year speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country was close to test launching an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and state media has said a launch could come at any time.

Trump’s defense secretary plans to visit Japan and South Korea next week and shared concerns about North Korea are expected to top his agenda.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) – A former long-time mayor of Pennsylvania’s capital was sentenced to two years of probation on Friday after pleading guilty on charges related to the theft of artifacts purchased with public funds for a museum that was never built in the city.

Stephen Reed, a collector of American West memorabilia who served as the mayor of Harrisburg for 28 years, was given no jail time in a case that initially included nearly 500 charges.

He pleaded guilty earlier this week to 20 counts of receiving stolen historical items that had been intended for a Museum of the American West that he championed as a tourist draw for his financially strapped city. In his defense, Reed said he mistakenly took home some artifacts that did not belong to him.

In handing down the sentence in Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas, Judge Kevin Hess praised the 67-year-old Reed for his long service to the city.

Hess said he was imposing no jail time because Reed had taken full responsibility for his actions, and said it was “far from certain” Reed would have been convicted if he went to trial.

Reed “revitalized the city of Harrisburg in ways that are obvious to anyone who looks out of this courthouse,” Hess said.

After the sentencing, Reed said he was relieved the ordeal was over. “I will focus on a significant health challenge I face,” said Reed, who is being treated for prostate cancer.

The judge previously threw out many of the most serious charges, including siphoning money from city and school district bond issues, because of the statue of limitations.

Reed may apply to end the probation as soon as he pays a $2,000 fine and the costs of prosecution.

Prosecutor Rebecca Franz said “justice was achieved” by the verdict.

But Harrisburg’s current mayor, Eric Papenfuse decried the sentence, attributing many of the city’s financial problems to Reed. Harrisburg in 2011 filed for bankruptcy, but was put into receivership after the case was thrown out.

After the hearing, Papenfuse said his predecessor should have received two to five years in prison because of damage he did to the city in the museum case and other matters, including a failed incinerator retrofit project. 

Reed claims more than 1,800 artifacts seized from his home during the investigation rightfully belong to him, and he has asked the court to return them.

A hearing on his motion is scheduled in March.

The presidents of the United States and Mexico spoke by phone on Friday after relations between the neighboring countries frayed further over Donald Trump’s border wall plan, with the U.S. leader calling the talk friendly but still demanding reworked trade and other ties.

The call between Trump and Enrique Pena Nieto came a day after the Mexican president scrapped a meeting set for next week at the White House over Trump’s demand that Mexico pay for a multibillion-dollar wall along the lengthy southern U.S. border with Mexico. Mexico insists it will not pay for it.

Both countries issued statements saying Trump and Pena Nieto recognized their clear differences of opinion on the payment demand, and agreed to settle the matter as part of a broader discussion on all aspects of the two nations’ relationship.

Financial markets took news of the call as a sign that the crisis in U.S-Mexican relations just days after Trump took office had eased. Mexico’s peso rose on the news.

Mexico’s government statement said Trump and Pena Nieto agreed not to talk publicly for now about payment for the wall. The White House did not immediately clarify whether Trump had agreed not to publicly discuss how the wall would be paid for.

During a joint news conference at the White House with visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May after the call, Trump did not mention the wall even as he spoke expansively about U.S. relations with Mexico.

“As you know, Mexico – with the United States – has out-negotiated us and beat us to a pulp through our past leaders. They’ve made us look foolish,” Trump told the news conference.

“We have a trade deficit of $60 billion with Mexico. On top of that, the border is soft and weak, drugs are pouring in,” added Trump, who during the U.S. presidential campaign accused Mexico of sending rapists and other criminals into the United States.

The United States had a $58.8 billion trade deficit with its southern neighbor in the 11 months ending last November.

Trump called his hour long talk with Pena Nieto “very, very friendly,” said he has a “very good relationship” with him and expressed “great respect for Mexico.” Mexico and the White House both called the meeting productive and constructive.

Nevertheless, Trump showed no signs of backing off pledges to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada and slap high tariffs on American companies that have moved jobs south of the border.

Mexico sends 80 percent of its exports to the United States, and about half of Mexico’s foreign direct investment over the past two decades has come from its northern neighbor.

‘FAIR RELATIONSHIP’

“We are going to be working on a fair relationship and a new relationship” with Mexico, Trump told the news conference with May. “But the United States cannot continue to lose vast amounts of business, vast amounts of companies and millions and millions of people losing their jobs. That won’t happen with me.”

Trump said the United States will renegotiate trade deals and other aspects of America’s relationship with Mexico, adding, “And in the end I think it will be good for both countries.”

U.S. congressional leaders said on Thursday they would take up legislation to provide $12 billion to $15 billion to pay for the wall.

Trump, who has insisted that Mexico will reimburse the United States for the entire cost, signed a directive on Wednesday for the wall to proceed, part of a package of measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration.

The wall plan has angered Mexicans, and Trump’s policies toward Mexico have put Pena Nieto on the defensive.

The Republican president views the wall, a major promise during his election campaign, as part of a package of measures to curb illegal immigration. Mexico has long insisted it will not heed Trump’s demands to pay for the construction project.

On Thursday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer sent the Mexican peso falling when he told reporters that Trump wanted a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports to pay for the wall.

Spicer gave few details, but his comments resembled an existing idea, known as a border adjustment tax, that the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives is considering as part of a broad tax overhaul.

Trump said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Friday that there were options besides an import tax that could be “much more positive” for both countries.

The White House said Friday’s call also covered “the importance of the friendship between the two nations, and the need for the two nations to work together to stop drug cartels, drug trafficking and illegal guns and arms sales.” Mexico’s government said the U.S. trade deficit also came up.

In Mexico City, billionaire Mexican businessman Carlos Slim said a united Mexico was ready to help the government negotiate with Trump and called on all political parties to support Pena Nieto in his discussions with the U.S. president.

In a rare news conference by the generally media-shy mogul, Slim said Mexico needed to negotiate from a position of strength, noting that Trump, who he called a “great negotiator,” represented a major change in how politics will be conducted.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland in Washington and Christine Murray and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

O’Grady tried to explain the post by saying she viewed his presidential candidacy as a “disaster” for the country. O’Grady, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Denver district, oversees coordination with Washington-based advance teams for all presidential trips or trips made by his Trump administration officials.

Despite her senior security role, O’Grady complained to her Facebook followers, sparking at least one complaint to the office. Americans were particularly outraged about her claim that she would rather endure “jail time” than “take a bullet” for Trump. She also claimed his presidency would be a “disaster” for America.

President Donald Trump on Friday put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred visitors from Syria and some other Muslim-majority countries, saying the moves would help protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

Civil rights groups condemned the measures as discriminatory.

“I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. Don’t want them here,” Trump said earlier on Friday at the Pentagon.

“We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people,” he said.

The order suspends the Syrian refugee program until further notice, and will eventually give priority to minority religious groups fleeing persecution. Trump said in an interview with a Christian news outlet the exception would help Syrian Christians fleeing the civil war there.

His order had been expected to include a directive about setting up “safe zones” for Syrian refugees inside the country, but no such language was included.

The measure limits entry for at least 90 days from Syria and other Muslim-majority countries, but did not list the countries by name.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association said it would ban entry from nationals of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

Trump had promised the measures – called “extreme vetting” – during last year’s election campaign, saying they would prevent militants from entering the United States from abroad.

The move was immediately condemned by Democrats, civil rights groups and aid groups such as Oxfam and others.

“President Trump has cloaked what is a discriminatory ban against nationals of Muslim countries under the banner of national security,” said Greg Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Chen said the order will “severely cripple” the U.S. refugee program, leaving desperate people in danger.

“This policy does not make us safer. It shows weakness and withdraws our nation from the position as global leader when so many refugees urgently need protection,” Chen said.

(Reporting by Emily Stephenson in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Mohammad Zargham, Dan Levine, Michelle Nichols, Julia Edwards Ainsley; Writing by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)