GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is calling for a boycott of Mexico after the escape of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán from a prison there last weekend.
“It’s a corrupt place,” Trump told host Rita Cosby for an interview on radio station 77 WABC in New York airing Sunday. “It’s a terrible court system.”
{mosads}“And let’s put it this way — I’m not going to Mexico,” he added. “I think we should boycott Mexico frankly. Mexico is treating us very, very badly.”
Guzmán stunned the world by breaking out of a maximum-security prison in Mexico on July 11.
Trump has made illegal immigration from Mexico a centerpiece of his 2016 campaign, saying that lax border security has brought more crime to the U.S. He said in the interview that the drug lord’s escape shows he has been right.
“It’s unbelievable that he got out and it sort of just goes to what I’m saying, about the whole thing on the border, and the whole thing about crime, and all of the things I’ve said,” he said.
“So I was right on the crime, I was right on the border,” he added.
“We have to close up our border,” said Trump. “We have to build a wall. I can do the wall better than anybody and that’s the story.”
Trump said on Monday he had contacted the FBI following threatening tweets reportedly from Guzmán’s son on Twitter.
“Keep f-cking around I’ll make you eat all of your goddamn words,” tweeted @ElChapo0Guzman on Sunday, an unverified account with over 490,000 followers that is reportedly Guzman’s voice on social media.
Trump sparked controversy at his presidential launch last month when he said Mexico was “sending people who have a lot of problems” across the border.
“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” he added. “And some, I assume, are good people.”
Trump said in the WABC interview that he is attacking Mexico’s leaders and not the Mexican people.
“You know I have great relationships with the people of Mexico,” Trump told Cosby. “The people of Mexico are terrific.
“But the problem we have is that the government of Mexico is outsmarting our government,” he continued. “Whether it’s trade or at the border, and so I can’t be angry at them. I’m angry at our government for being so stupid.”