Donald Trump will travel to Mexico on Wednesday to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto

By Kate Linthicum

Aug. 30, 2016 9:36 PM PT

Reporting from Mexico City — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will travel to Mexico on Wednesday for a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, a stunning move for a candidate who has repeatedly criticized Mexico and has called for mass deportations of Mexican immigrants.

Trump announced the visit late Tuesday via Twitter, saying he had accepted Peña Nieto’s invitation to visit Mexico and looked forward to the meeting.

Peña Nieto released a similar statement, saying he recently extended invitations for private meetings to Trump as well as Trump’s rival, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “I believe in dialogue to promote the interests of Mexico in the world, and to protect Mexicans wherever they are,” Peña Nieto said on Twitter.

Peña Nieto’s office said Clinton has so far not accepted the invitation for a meeting.

The announcement provoked angry reactions from Mexicans, many of whom have come to revile Trump for his claims that Mexico is stealing jobs from American workers and sending drugs and criminals to the U.S.

The meeting also threatened Trump’s credibility among conservative voters who like his harsh stand against illegal immigration and international trade deals, although analysts said the trip might help his appeal among the wider electorate.

“The idea of a trip to Mexico seems designed to soften some of the edges of the policies he has advocated so far and to appeal to Latino voters, as well as to many other Americans who appreciate the importance of Mexico for the United States,” said Andrew Selee of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Center.

Wednesday’s meeting in Mexico City was set to come just hours before Trump is scheduled to give a major policy speech on immigration in Arizona. Some commentators have speculated that Trump might be planning to soften his tone on immigration in the speech in order to appeal to a broader swath of voters.

Trump won conservative support in the Republican primary with pledges to build a border wall and round up and deport the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. without permission. But such views are out of sync with general election voters, a majority of whom support a path to citizenship for immigrants who are already in the country.

At a campaign rally in Washington state on Tuesday night, Trump showed no sign of softening his stance, pledging to “secure our border and stop the drugs from pouring in and destroying our country.”

Trump’s Mexico trip prompted criticism from immigrant advocates, who called it a stunt.

“Lest we forget, immigration is a deadly serious issue for millions of families living in the United States,” said Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles. “Donald Trump is managing to once again hijack the media’s attention and turn a real human crisis into a circus.”

Trump’s last-minute decision to make the trip is characteristic of his campaign, which has been built around made-for-television plot twists and surprise developments. After accusing Fox news of bias against his campaign in January, Trump abruptly dropped out of a scheduled GOP debate on the network and organized his own televised fundraiser as counter-programming. On a surprise visit to the Texas-Mexico border last summer, he told reporters he was putting himself “in great danger” by making the trip.

Wednesday’s meeting is also a risky move for Peña Nieto, who is facing historic unpopularity as his government grapples with rising crime and repeated corruption scandals. The president, who has publicly criticized Trump’s proposal to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it, is scheduled to give his annual address to the nation this week.

Widespread distaste for Trump in Mexico is evidenced by the Trump piñatas that are ubiquitous across the country.

One political scientist wrote on Twitter that Peña Nieto’s invitation to Trump felt like a father inviting his son’s bully over to dinner.

Jesus Silva-Herzog Marquez, a newspaper columnist in Mexico City, was more succinct in his criticism on Twitter, calling Wednesday’s meeting “the stupidest thing in the history of the Mexican presidency.”

Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

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UPDATES:

10:14 p.m.: This article was updated with information about how immigrant rights advocates view Trump’s plan to visit Mexico.

This article was originally published at 9:35 p.m.