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Mexico is sending aid to Texas even as Trump insults them

Mexico’s government is sending vehicles, boats, food and other supplies to Houston to help the city deal with the massive devastation from Hurricane Harvey, which has displaced tens of thousands and left at least 25 dead.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thanked the Mexican government on Wednesday for its “generous” aid offer, which Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has formally accepted.

“I particularly want to thank the government of Mexico for its offer of assistance to the state of Texas,” Tillerson said during a joint press conference with Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Luis Videgaray Caso. “They’ve offered a wide range of assistance, coordinating with the governor down in Texas and also through FEMA. It is very generous of Mexico to offer their help at this very challenging time for our citizens down in Texas.”

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Meanwhile, separate from the aid package offered by the Mexican government, a team of more than 30 English-speaking volunteers from Mexico’s Red Cross are making their way to Houston to offer assistance in shelters, which are providing refuge to an estimated 30,000 people.

This isn’t the first time the Mexican government has stepped in to offer assistance to the United States. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Mexico sent 200 troops on a relief mission to the U.S. The soldiers set up camp at a former Air Force base just outside of San Antonio, Texas, and distributed clean drinking water, medical supplies, and 7,000 hot meals each day to people stranded by the deadly storm for a total of three weeks.

Mexico’s generosity comes at a particularly fraught time for U.S.-Mexican relations. President Donald Trump characterized immigrants from Mexico as “rapists” who were bringing drugs and crime over the border. He’s also insisted that Mexico will pay for the border wall “one way or another.”

A border-wall budget fight looms this fall when the president will look for funding approval from Congress and presumably detail how he intends for Mexico to help foot the bill.