US President-elect Donald Trump confirmed he recently met with Carlos Slim, calling the Mexican billionaire a “great businessman” and a “great guy” after lashing out at him on the campaign trail.
“Yes, it’s true,” Trump tweeted. “Carlos Slim, the great businessman from Mexico, called me about getting together for a meeting. We met, HE IS A GREAT GUY!”
The two men met for a private dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida on Saturday, according to The Washington Post. The aim of the dinner was to open a “friendly line of communication” between the two men, the Post reported.
The meeting comes as Mexican political and business leaders are trying to determine if and how Trump plans to carry out his campaign pledges to overhaul trade and immigration policies between the US and Mexico.
During the campaign, Slim criticized Trump’s vows to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to keep out undocumented immigrants and to force Mexico to pay for it.
For his part, Trump accused Slim, a major shareholder of The New York Times, of using his connection to the paper to try to help Hillary Clinton win the election, an accusation Slim denied.
Uncertainty over the plans of the incoming Trump administration and its approach to US-Mexico relations have weighed on the Mexican economy, weakening the peso currency in recent months.
Earlier this month, Slim told a business event in Mexico that if Trump is able to help the US economy grow it would be “fantastic” for Mexico. He also said that Trump’s plans to increase infrastructure spending in the US would be a boost to the Mexican economy.
Neither Trump nor Slim publicly commented on what the two discussed at the dinner. The Post said the dinner was arranged after Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager, met with Slim in early December in Mexico City.