The Order of the Aztec Eagle is the highest honor than can be given to foreigners by Mexico. This week, they will give it to Jared Kushner, NPR reports.
Jared Kushner, who is a senior White House adviser, receives the honor for “significant contributions in achieving the renegotiation of the new agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada,” according to the Mexican foreign ministry.
This past year, the three countries worked out a new deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said at a Tuesday event that Kushner is a “grand ally of Mexico.”
However, the decision to award Kushner has been met with outrage from Mexican citizens. Trump has low popularity in the country, largely due to the comments he made about the country while on the campaign trail. He has frequently called Mexicans “rapists,” and talks often about building a wall between the US-Mexican border.
President Pena Nieto’s support of Trump caused his popularity rating in Mexico to plummet. As he prepares to leave office this weekend, his approval rating is in the low 20s.
A flurry of angry tweets erupted after the decision to award Kushner was announced. Past honorees of the Order of the Aztec Eagle include Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Gates, and Walt Disney.
Jared Kushner to join The Queen and Nelson Mandela in ‘The Order of the Aztec Eagle’ ?? ??? ? #eagle #jaredkushner #mexico #usa pic.twitter.com/BWg94iNCn2
— ICYMI (@ICYMIvideo) November 28, 2018
President Pena Nieto will award Kushner with the honor this week in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Mexican President-elect Andrew Manuel Lopez Obrador won a landslide victory in July. He will take office on Saturday.
Pena Nieto said to the Mexican media that Kushner “has been an important actor in this objective of having a good understanding of the new government that entered two years ago,” as reported by The Guardian .
“This is the perfect ending for Pena Nieto’s term: an insuperable illustration of the indignity of his government’s position regarding Trump…It’s the final kick in the crotch for Mexicans,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a professor at the Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics.
Like his father-in-law, Jared Kushner’s background is in real estate. And like his wife Ivanka Trump, Kushner is the son of a real estate developer, according to Biography . Kushner took over his father’s business when the senior Kushner was imprisoned for various financial crimes.
Kushner married Ivanka Trump in 2009, and served as a political adviser to Trump during the 2016 campaign. Kushner and Ivanka Trump have three children together. Along with many others, Kushner is a current person of interest in the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election as led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
