By Juan Montes 

MEXICO CITY -- Top Mexican officials will meet with senior members of Donald Trump's administration next week in Washington, D.C., to discuss bilateral security, migration and economic issues such as the Nafta free trade pact, the Mexican government said Thursday.

Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo are expected to meet Jan. 25-26 with several high-ranking White House officials, including chief of staff Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Michael Flynn, the Mexican government said in a statement.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to take office on Friday.

The meeting comes at a difficult time in bilateral relations, after Mr. Trump's repeated pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and to deport illegal migrants from the U.S. He also said he plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and have Mexico pay for it.

The officials are expected to discuss a road map for negotiations surrounding Nafta. Mexican officials want to speed up talks to lower uncertainty affecting foreign investment in Mexico. New foreign investment in Mexico has dried up since Mr. Trump's election victory and the peso has hit record lows.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump repeatedly said Nafta was the "worst trade deal ever."

Despite the harsh rhetoric, Mexican officials have confidence they can convince Mr. Trump's administration of Nafta's benefits and modify the deal without major changes. One focus of attention is likely to be raising rules of origin that set minimum limits on the amount of regional content for goods traded tariff-free in the region.

Mexico sends 80% of its exports north of the border, around $300 billion accounting for almost a third of the country's annual gross domestic product. But Mexican officials also like to note U.S. exports to Mexico support around 6 million jobs in the U.S., and many states, such as Texas, have large commercial trade surpluses with Mexico.

Jaime Zabludovsky, an economist who served as chief trade negotiator for the trade agreement on behalf of the Mexican government, said the integration of the U.S. and Mexican economies is so deep that he predicted the new American president's policies would fail to change that.

"Clearly there's a great integration" between the two countries, said Mr. Zabludovsky at a recent conference. "In the end, Trump is going to be noise in the long-term integration of North America."

Another hot-button issue has been illegal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. While fewer Mexicans are crossing north illegally than at any time since the early 1970s, there has been a recent increase in migrants from Central America.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has repeatedly said Mexico won't pay for Mr. Trump's proposed border wall. Mr. Trump has suggested he could curb remittances sent back to Mexico by workers in the U.S. to pressure Mexico to pay for the wall.

"There is no way that's going to happen," said Mr. Videgaray, who has a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earlier in January. "It's not a matter of how much does it cost, or where's the money coming from, it's a matter of dignity and national sovereignty."

Mr. Videgaray, Mr. Peña Nieto's closest aide and confidant who was named foreign minister early in January, has developed a close relationship with Mr. Kushner, a real-estate investor married to one of Mr. Trump's daughters. As Mr. Trump's cabinet nominees haven't been yet confirmed, Mr. Kushner has been so far the main channel Mexican officials have used to keep in touch with Mr. Trump's team.

The contact between the two men paved the way for Mr. Trump's controversial visit to Mexico in August when he was the Republican nominee.

Write to Juan Montes at juan.montes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 19, 2017 19:12 ET (00:12 GMT)