welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. tonight america is the original immigrant nation. so as the country marks independence day, we dedicate our program to this, the issue of our time. mexico's foreign minister luis videgaray joins us on the border wall, family separations and u.s./mexico relations after the stung election win of lopez obrador. plus, he escaped his war-torn homeland before winning a new life in the united states. my conversation with a somalia migrant to america, and why he feels president trump is betraying his american dream.

welcome to the program everyone. i am christiane amanpour in london. president trump and the left-wing president-elect of mexico might make strange bedfellows, but they're pledging to work together in the future after speaking by phone at length this week. andres manuel lopez obrador won in a landslide this weekend. immigration and trade disputes have sunk relations between the two countries to unprecedented lows. secretary of state, mike pompeo, will travel to meet with mexico's president-elect next week, with a he'll also meet my next guest, the current and outgoing foreign minister, luis videgaray. and he is joining me now from mexico city. foreign minister, welcome to the program. >> hello, christiane. it's great to be with you from mexico city. >> so i just want to start by asking you, obviously the question of our time and the question that's really standing

between you and the united states, and that is the immigration issue. you have called the president's policies cruel and inhumane. we've all seen these horrendous pictures of children crying, weeping, separated from their parents. the president has changed this policy, but are you getting any assurances as to what's happening with the children, what immigration policy is? >> christiane, let me start by saying that mexico's relationship with the u.s. is extremely important and it's also very wide, very complex. we have -- it's not only about immigration. it's not only about trade. it's about security. it's about investment, tourism, culture, education. it's one of the tightest, more intense relationships between neighbors in the world. certainly we want to have a very good relationship with the u.s. and that's in the best interest of mexico and mexicans. however, there are some issues where we have public and

notorious differences, and certainly mexico has its own limits. one of the things that has been a clear problem recently has been the treatment of children that have migrated into the u.s. and have been separated from their parents. we are, of course, encouraged by the decision from president trump to stop that policy from continuing, but you have to keep in mind that still over 2,000 children are still separated from their parents, and we want to make -- we want to be sure that this is not continue. we have introduced a resolution that was unanimously approved by the organization of american states condemning this policy and demanding from the u.s. government to take care of the children in a proper way and quickly reunite them with their parents. i have talked personally with secretary general gutierrez from the united nations also for the u.n. to be involved in this

issue. this is something that i believe all mexicans, not only the mexican government, consider unacceptable. and separating children from their parents, it's a cruel and inhumane policy that should not continue. >> as i said, the president has reversed that particular aspect of it. however, by implication, these children are being detained now with their parents who are deemed to have crossed illegally, you know, have to undergo some kind of prosecution under criminal laws now. again, have you received any assurances or explanations from the u.s. administration as to what's actually going to happen? >> let me tell you, christiane, we are as a mexican government fully respect u.s. sovereignty and the absolute right of the u.s. to define its own immigration laws and policies. however, no immigration laws can be above human rights protection particularly those of children. so this is why we are so

involved in this problem. i have been talking to the secretary of state mike pompeo and secretary of homeland security, kirstjen nielsen. i will be meeting with her in guatemala next tuesday with my colleagues from guatemala, honduras and el salvador. we'll be meeting with her, and we expect not only words but it but our actions. what kind of policies is the u.s. putting in place to make sure not only the kids separated from parents but also that they are treated accordingly to their needs and certainly obtaining children is also a potential violation of basic rights. so we continue to be concerned, and we continue to be working closely with the u.s. i expect that on tuesday in guatemala, it will be a

productive meeting where we hear from the u.s. specific measures to prevent this from continuing and happening again. >> so let's move on now to relations going forward. as you have said, it's very important to have a working relationship with the united states. so what do you think will change under a new presidential administration in your country? for instance, you know president trump has often derided what he calls a trade deficit with mexico. he's talked about ripping up and renegotiating nafta. your own president-elect thinks nafta needs to be renegotiated, but i guess he comes at it from a different political vantage point than president trump. how do you think thanks are going to be different under a new administration in mexico? >> well, that's really for the elected president and his team to explain. what i think is trade for mexico and the u.s. is good for both

countries. we do not oppose modernizing nafta, and we're working hard to get it done. yesterday when president nieto met with soon to be president obrador, they agreed that the current administration before president nieto's term ends would work hard in close coordination with the incoming team to try to get the nafta renegotiation completed. e u.s., with the white house of the states and they are certainly sharing this objective. so the next few weeks will be of intense work with the u.s., and also with good communication and coordination with the incoming administration. nafta is good for everybody. it needs to be modernized. but trade between the two countries -- i should say three countries. let's not forget nafta is a try lateral agreement and we are very close to canada and feel

very good about canada being our partner, is something that should continue. and that will not change regardless of politics in every country. trade is good. trade is needed for the well-being of the three countries, and that will continue. >> you say that and of course trade is good and all the economists say it is good. president trump takes the view trade has has been unfair and a trade war is good. he used those words and he says it is easy to win and mexico and canada are the u.s. allies and adversaries and are being slapped with tariffs and threatened with more tariffs. again, are you concerned that is going to be, you know, the course of the future even on the future mexican administration? >> we've been working already for over a year in the nafta renegotiation. we've been through moments of conflict. we've been through different ups and downs, but the process continues. i think we significant -- we're significantly close to the agreement there are some issues that have not been resolved. that's what the negotiation will

be about in the coming months. but i think we are on a good track. i feel good about our odds to get it done. obviously, you have to wait until the completion of the negotiation to see what the outcome is. there are risks in the process naturally, but i think we've made enough progress and the will both from president nieto and incoming president obrador is there. and i see also a strong will from the white house to complete the renegotiations soon. so we are -- i should say reasonably optimistic about the process being completed relatively soon. >> okay, so that's about the substance, but there's also a lot of how to deal with president trump that many leaders around the world are still trying to figure out. you know, some, like your own president who received candidate trump before the election were incredibly nice and kind and polite and hospitable, and got sort of, you know, some might

say not the kind of response and relationship they had hoped to get. i wonder what you make, again, with this trade situation of the dutch prime minister who was in the oval office yesterday, and he didn't sort of take it from president trump. he pushed back on the idea of tariffs. i'll play a few and i want to ask you about it afterwards. >> we do work it out, that will be positive. and if we don't, it will be positive also. >> no. >> we'll just think about those cars foreign here. >> well, there you go. the dutch prime minister telling president trump there is nothing positive about slapping tariffs on cars. and creating sort of this tit for tat trade war. so have you in mexico learned a lesson about how to deal with president trump? does it -- does it pay to appease him or do you have to stand up for what you believe is in your own policy interests? >> i am not in a position to

provide lessons to anybody. i can share my experience. we have chosen gaugement and close communication. we have very clear public differences on several topics, including some aspects of trade, and when we agree, we clearly agree. but, also when we have differences, we make it very clear to the u.s. administration and president trump himself on tariffs. the u.s. imposed incorrectly, tariffs on our steel and our aluminum. we replied immediately with tariffs and several u.s. products. so it's not only about rhetoric, it's also about actions. and i think that mexico's actions speak for themselves. >> so let me ask you to respond to this, then. you, yourself, foreign minister are considered somebody who have had a very close relationship right at the heart of the oval office, in fact with jared kushner, the president's adviser and son-in-law. quote, jared and videgaray

pretty much run mexico policy. which is what a u.s. official told "the new yorker" late last year. but that was a problem for the u.s. ambassador to mexico, roberta jacobson, who as you know has now quit. and this is what she said to me yesterday about her ability to reach the mexican government. listen to this. >> it was a combination of things, but among them was this analysis that i wasn't having influence on the president even if i felt like conversations perhaps with then secretary tillerson or other cabinet secretaries might have been productive. if in the end the vilification of mexico continues, the demeaning of its cooperation continues, and the kind of language that we've seen from the president continues, then i felt i could no longer defend the kinds of policies that were being implemented.

>> so what do you think, then, since they won't have somebody like yourself to talk to, somebody who can try to smooth the edges, do you perceive the u.s. still having a confrontational policy towards mexico? >> i think they are unresolved issues certainly which we definitely don't agree, but i expect the current administration and the next administration to work hard, to don't allow our differences to define the relationship. by the way, i should say i like roberta jacobson a lot. she was a great ambassador to mexico. we appreciate all the work that she did. but let's be clear, the relationship between mexico and the u.s. is driven by the president. it was president trump who decided our main contact was to be jared kushner, and now secretary pompeo, and it was

president pena nieto who decide it would be me as foreign minister who would coordinate the relationship from our side. but it's the president who makes the important calls, and i expect that to fully continue through the end of president pena's administration and starting with president obrador's incoming administration starting december 1st. >> and on that note, foreign minister luis videgaray, thank you so much for joining us from mexico city tonight. thanks a lot. now, as mexico and the united states wrestle with migrants crossing their borders, we turn to someone who has made that treacherous journey on the other side of the world, fleeing everything you know in search of safety, a better life and freedom make takes a lot of courage, and it represents the ultjuly 4th story. as abdi nor iftin well knows, grew up in somalia, a fervent believer in the american dream.

later, when al shabaab forced him to flee, he sought a journey to america. his story does have a happy ending, he won the lottery, the visa lottery that allowed him into the united states. now the trump administration is threatening to ax that program, and it's all chronicled in abdi's new memoir, "call me american." he joined me from his home in maine to share the harrowing journey that it took to get there. abdi nor iftin, welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> so abdi, you talk about your earliest memories when you were in somalia, your home country, at the height of a terrible famine. you know, i remember that famine because i was one of many journalists who came to cover it. it was when president bush at the time sent marines to try to stop that famine. but can you remind us of what you remember of those terrible days? >> as a child at the time, i remember that it felt like we

were dying because i was 5 years old when the war happened, and then the famine began in late '91 and then early '92. the thing that i can remember is we could die in anyways, you know. the bullets could kill me or the starvation could kill me. so at that point, we never expected that i would wake up. i don't remember one day that i thought i would wake up and go back to bed without something happening. it felt like you know death was very, very close. >> and describe the feeling of hunger and starvation. i know that one of your little sisters died at the time. how did your family cope? what did you do when you saw that happening in front of you. your own family and you were so young? >> we did everything we could

do. we ate the tree leaves, you know, we ate skin of our feet at the time because we were trying to stay alive and then my brother and i when our mother could not do anything more and her feet was swollen, my brother and i jumped in and became the supporters of our family. >> you said you ate the skin from your feet. that's about as desperate as it can be. >> it is. it is extremely desperate as it can be. that moment, in that specific moment, we could eat anything, honestly. we were just trying to have something in our bellies, something that could keep us alive another day. >> what gave you hope?

you did -- you grew up there. you did everything you could to survive, but in your book you describe -- and of course your book is called "call me american." and you were known as a kid there as "abdi the american." what was it about you that had your friends call you that? >> i felt completely overwhelmed by the american films, and specifically, the few moments i had in contact with american marines in mogadishu. to me it was amazing to see someone in uniform and with m-16 guns, and the guns were not pointed at my head, they were pointed away from me. but my friends had started calling me american specifically when i became a movie buff, that i could not stop going to the movies and i could not stop listening to the sounds and the words that the movie actors were saying. so at this point when i became a translator, and i started

calling my friends to sit in a circle in this movie shack, and i said everything that was happening in the movie, i said oh, he's going to kill someone. oh, he says he's going to come back. and they feel, wow, you're -und saying. i said oh, yeah, so please call me american. and i was so proud of it. >> you became so good at english and you translated all these movies for your friends, and then at one point, things started to go really badly, right? didn't you start getting recruited by the terrorist group al shabaab, the offshoot of al qaeda? >> the al shabaab which was part of al qaeda where they just arrived in 2006 when i turned 22. and it was a perfect timing for them to start recruiting young men of my age. it was when america recognized somalia as an emerging islamic

state, and i found myself in the most difficult days in my life because earlier when the war lords were there, it was easy for me to hang out with my girlfriend, go to the beautiful beach of mogadishu and walk around and ask my friends to call me american, and i would dance in the streets. i would go to weddings with some friends and we dance on american music and i spoke american english and i wrote english phrases on the streets. but when al shabaab came, everything that i was doing became a crime, a sin, and they whipped me so bad for going with a girl to the beach. and they had called me on the phone to give me a really a warning about my nickname. they say are you the one they called american, they asked me drop it, and that's what they were doing. they give you warning first, and the second time they shoot you. i wish i can leave at the time.

somalia was -- the borders were closed. i couldn't go to kenya. i could not cross the ocean. the pirates were at the time active on the ocean. i wish i could leave in 2006 when al shabaab came. but leaving somalia was in my mind every minute of those days. and, yes, i had -- that's when i actually decided to leave somalia. but it took me years to do that, up until 2011. >> so abdi, you then became one of the lucky ones. you won a diverse lottery for a greencard, for a permission, a visa into the united states. that must have been the happiest day of your life. >> it was my happiest days in my life. i was wondering -- you know, prayed for miracle in my entire life, and that day is when i realized, wow, the miracle has just happened, because no other

countries offers diversity visa lottery, the lottery that i applied at the time, and it was only america. and it was a perfect timing for me. and out of the 15 million people that applied to this program every year, i became part of those few lucky ones. actually, the chances are very, very low. all my friends applied but they did not win. somehow i did. >> fast forward to this year on world refugee day where you wrote a piece for "time" magazine. people always had a chance to win american. we could win the visa lottery as i did and tougher odds to get into harvard, or be accepted as refugees. but when president trump banned immigrants from seven muslim countries, including my own, a ban expected and upheld by the supreme court, your luck has run out. so how is it for abdi the

american in the united states right now? what do you feel about this country that offered you a new chance, a second chapter in life under the current administration? do you feel at risk? >> under the current administration, i felt threatened. i feel that my american dream had been betrayed by the current white house and the current president that we have. and unfortunately, what they are doing, the travel ban, is a gift to the group like al shabaab, the same group that i avoided to recruit me and that i run away from my country because of them. it is a good news for them. it gives them a good chance to recruit and also strengthens their image to go all over the place and try to recruit everybody else because the current u.s. administration has closed its borders to everybody else. and it was not only me.

it's not about abdi. it's about all other dreamers that are out there that wanted to come to the united states in one way or another. i have friends that are still living next door to my mother. in the locally displaced makeshift camps in mogadishu that say, well, you know, abdi, you made it, and you have given us some hope. it shows us we have to dream too, that we can be like you one day. and they had been doing this for years. they applied the greencard lottery every year. unfortunately, they have not been selected. but they have been trying it. but now i received text message, and they're saying i don't even want to try this year. i mean, my dream has died. and i don't know what to tell them. >> president trump has said that ending this diversity lottery is part of his immigration reform idea. and obviously somalia, your own country, is on the travel ban. you are trying to become a citizen. do you think you will be able

to? and how do you feel this july 4th, independence day? >> i don't look at america the way i look at america years before trump was elected. i kind of feel sad. i sometimes see my face frowning, and i'm disappointed, of course, but i'm not disappointed in the entire american system. this administration is not going to be around forever. i have thousands of american friends that feel frustrated as well, that feels so bad the way america -- america's behaving, the way this white house is behaving. what makes america a wonderful country is the way that the rest of the world sees america as an exceptional nation, as a nation that's known for its tolerance, democracy, freedom and opportunities, and that is the way i saw america for my life,

you know, growing up since those marines have arrived, and they have given me candies and sweets and everything else as i was recovering from famine at the time. and then all the way up to when i became friends with so many americans that save mid life and created money to get me out of somalia and then get me out of kenya when i won the lottery. >> you've made a huge and exceptional effort to get to the united states, and we really appreciate you talking to us. abdi nor iftin, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. it's an honor. >> such a poignant july 4th story. and we want to wish all you viewers a really happy independence day. that's it for our program tonight, and thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs. join us again tomorrow night.

>> you are watching "thnbeyond 100 days." >> cracking down on immigration. >> immigrants will be held for maximum of 48 hours. where could they go next? we asked the foreign minister. a russian agent and his daughter were poison. a couple of people are in critical condition and the police sit if they are keeping an open mind. >> we will talk to an aide to president a