Vanity Fair Mexico Shows Melania Trump On Cover Even As US-Mexico Tensions Rise

Vanity Fair Mexico is featuring first lady Melania Trump on the cover of its February issue. The cover shows her in a white dress and jewelry, and pretending to eat from a bowl that contains more sparkling objects.

Calling her "the new Jackie Kennedy," the magazine put out a tweet Thursday to promote the upcoming issue, in which it said: ""Melania Trump, on February cover. A report that reveals the past of this intriguing first lady."

The cover featuring Melania, herself an immigrant to the United States, comes at a time when her husband, President Donald Trump, is taking a harsh stance against immigration into the U.S. Earlier this week, targeting Mexico specifically, he signed an executive order to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and has also proposed a 20 percent tax on imports from the country.

In response to the wall construction order, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled a trip to Washington, D.C. He was scheduled to meet Trump on Jan. 31. Peña Nieto held a press conference Wednesday where he reportedly said "I have said time and time again, Mexico will not pay for any wall." The next morning, Trump responded, saying: "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting."

The cover photo on the magazine and the accompanying interview are actually old content that has been reused. They were originally published by GQ last year.

The first lady's "let-them-eat-diamonds" pose did not sit well with Mexican readers. Amidst the tensions between the two neighbors, the cover created an outrage among Mexicans.

"It's a lack of sensitivity on the part of the publisher," Guadalupe Loaeza, a Mexican author and columnist, reportedly said. "I started reading this and I couldn't finish. I didn't want to know anything about the wife of our country's No 1 enemy."

Mexicans used social media to express their discontent with the cover and also called the magazine insensitive to have played up the Trumps at this time.

"Thank you @VanityFairMX for putting Melania Trump on the cover. Great example of sensitivity, empathy, patriotism and editorial intelligence," Denise Dresser, a prominent public intellectual, tweeted.

In a statement Friday, the magazine reportedly said it understood its cover comes at a "complicated moment," but that it was only trying to provide "an independent and critical point of view of the present and the characters that star in it."