mexico border wall
© AP Photo/ Guillermo Arias
Mexico will not conduct any negotiations with the United States unless US President Donald Trump abandons his plans to try make Mexico finance the construction of a border wall between the two countries, Mexican Economic Minister Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal said Tuesday.

Guajardo is due to travel to Washington on January 25 to hold talks with Trump's top aides on a number of major bilateral issues, including trade, security and migration.

"We will fully [withdraw from negotiations], we are not powerless, we are a very important country for the development of the continent and the region," Guajardo said live on national television.

The United States and Mexico need to hold bilateral talks as the Trump administration has announced its intentions to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. The free trade bloc may be abandoned altogether in favor of bilateral agreements. During his election campaign, Trump also vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border as well as making Mexico pay for it in an effort to stem illegal migration into the United States.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has rejected any possibility of such an arrangement as well as promising to keep the freedom of migrant remittances.