Mexico’s outgoing government on Tuesday said that it would bestow the country’s top honor for foreigners on Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, a decision quickly met with derision by critics on social media.
Kushner, who also serves as a senior White House adviser, is to be admitted to the Order of the Aztec Eagle because of “his significant contributions” to a new North American trade pact agreed to in August, the Mexican government said in a statement.
Kushner has often played a key diplomatic role in Trump’s administration, meeting with Mexican and other foreign leaders, and helping broker the deal to update the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. Canada joined the pact in late September.
The award is expected to be formally presented to Kushner tomorrow by outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on the sidelines of the G20 summit of world leaders in Buenos Aires, Mexican newspaper Reforma reported on Tuesday, citing unidentified government sources.
The summit is also where the leaders of Mexico, the US and Canada are expected to sign the revamped regional trade deal.
The honor bestowed on Kushner was a trending topic on Twitter, where it appeared to be mostly criticized by prominent Mexicans.
“Giving him the Aztec Eagle reflects a supreme attitude of humiliation and cowardice,” Mexican historian Enrique Krauze wrote, adding that Trump called Mexican migrants murderers and rapists during his 2016 US presidential election campaign.
Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal wrote that the decision to honor Kushner was “tremendously shameful.”
Past Order of the Aztec Eagle honorees include Colombian Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and former South African president Nelson Mandela.
Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is to be inaugurated on Saturday after winning a landslide election victory in July.
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