Mexican ex-president: Trump effect is ‘just stupid’

Vicente Fox, the former Mexican president who once claimed he would never pay for Donald Trump’s “f—ing wall,” said Tuesday, “we cannot take [Trump] seriously.”

In an interview with Mother Jones, Fox panned Trump’s economic proposals, as well as the candidate’s plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.

{mosads}”The problem is that he’s causing severe damage to relationships that we hold in the world, diplomatic relationships, with all the free world. It’s just stupid.”

Fox has often spoken out against Trump’s proposals. He has been joined by another former Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, as well as President Enrique Peña Nieto and several members of his cabinet.

Mexican politicians hold a tradition of formality and neutrality in foreign affairs, but the prominence of Mexico and immigration as topics in the 2016 U.S. presidential race has helped break that taboo.

Fox came to prominence as an unorthodox businessman-cum-politician fond of straight talk and breaking traditions.

As a federal legislator after the hotly contested 1988 election, he wore electoral ballots as “donkey ears” in protest on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies. During his presidential campaign in 2000, Fox used colorful language and a charismatic TV presence to overwhelm his more traditional rivals.