Washington, United States: Donald Trump was expected in Mexico Wednesday to meet its president, in a move aimed at showing that despite the Republican White House hopeful’s hardline opposition to illegal immigration he is no close-minded xenophobe.

Trump stunned the political establishment when he announced late Tuesday that he was making the surprise trip south of the border to meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto, a sharp Trump critic.

The closed-door meeting takes place just hours before Trump delivers a highly-anticipated speech on immigration, and as debate about his hardline immigration policies—including his call for building a wall along the border and having Mexico pay for it—reaches fever pitch.

Pena Nieto has categorically rejected the idea of his country paying for a border wall, and has gone so far as to compare the Republican flagbearer to ‘Hitler and Mussolini.’

Trump’s visit holds potential political peril, as many in Mexico loathe him for his toxic rhetoric.

‘This meeting is incomprehensible from the Mexican perspective,’ Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official and current political analyst, told AFP.

‘What will they discuss? The price of the wall?’

Trump’s campaign director Kellyanne Conway said the pair will discuss immigration, along with drugs and trade.

The invitation by Pena Nieto, who was elected in 2012, comes as his own popularity has plummeted.

‘I believe in dialogue to promote the interests of Mexico in the world and mainly to protect Mexicans wherever they are,’ Pena Nieto said on Twitter late Tuesday as he explained his invitation to both Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to meet with him.

Clinton’s campaign has announced no plans for a visit. An aide said Clinton, who served as secretary of state, ‘looks forward to talking with President Pena Nieto again at the appropriate time.’

Trump is trailing Clinton in most polls, but the trip could allow him to seize control of the campaign narrative at a crucial time.

Trump said on Twitter he was ‘very much’ looking forward to meeting with Pena Nieto.

Mexico’s presidential office confirmed the visit, posting its own tweet in Spanish to say the billionaire New York real estate tycoon ‘has accepted the invitation and will meet tomorrow privately with the President @EPN.’

Trump has routinely assailed Mexican immigrants who illegally cross the border into the United States. Hardline immigration policies including calls for deportations are a key plank of his campaign.

Trump could be sensing an opportunity in the visit as he mulls whether to soften his positions on immigration, particularly the call early in his campaign to deport some 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows.

Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox sharply disapproved of the visit, blasting it as a ‘political stunt.’

‘Trump is using Mexico, using President Pena, to boost his sinking poll numbers,’ he told CNN Wednesday.

Pena Nieto was ‘taking an enormous political risk’ by hosting Trump, Fox said. ‘If he’s gone soft on Trump, it will hurt him greatly.’

Trump used some of the most incendiary language of his campaign when launching his White House bid last year, describing Mexicans as drug dealers, ‘rapists’ and other criminals.

He is scheduled to deliver what is billed as a crucial speech Wednesday evening in Phoenix, Arizona, seen as an opportunity to clarify his positions on immigration.

But Trump has vacillated between reaching out to minorities and returning to the anti-immigration rhetoric that goes down well among his most ardent supporters, mainly white working-class males.

‘Donald Trump is... not your standard issue politician, but really a business leader that knows you first got to sit down with people,’ his running mate Mike Pence told CNN, adding that the Trump-Pena Nieto meeting will be the ‘beginning of a conversation.’

‘You’ve got to look them in the eye. You’ve got to tell them where you stand.’

Trump has vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement Mexico that he blames for the relocation of US factories to Mexico and the loss of millions of US manufacturing jobs.

Last year Trump pledged to create a deportation force dedicated to rounding up those illegally in the country.

In recent weeks, he has expressed willingness to soften his hardline stance to a ‘fair and humane’ policy ahead of November’s election.

Faced with an outcry by core supporters, he backtracked. But he has focused recently on removing those undocumented immigrants with criminal records, a move that could avoid antagonizing more moderate voters.

Conway assured that local and US reporters will be on hand in Mexico for Trump’s visit. Trump’s campaign declined to bring the traveling press, which normally accompanies the candidate, on his Mexican trip.