Enrique Pena Nieto and Donald Trump
Enrique Pena Nieto and Donald TrumpReuters

U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto held an hour-long phone discussion on Friday, a day after a scheduled meeting was canceled amid heightened tensions over the Trump plans to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, The Hill reports.

"It was a very, very friendly call," Trump later told a joint news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May, according to Reuters.

"We are going to be working on a fair relationship and a new relationship" with Mexico, Trump added.

"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," he stressed.

On Thursday, Pena Nieto canceled a planned meeting with Trump after the U.S. president signed an executive order kicking off the process of building the border wall and vowed once again to force Mexico to pay for it.

Pena Nieto announced he would not visit Washington next week after Trump tweeted, "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.”

Hours after Pena Nieto canceled his visit to Washington, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump would impose a 20 percent tax on Mexican products in order to cover the costs of building the wall.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)