Kushner receives Mexico\'s top honor

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto awarded White House adviser Jared Kushner with the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the country's top honor for foreigners, for his work on the new North American trade pact.

The award was presented to Kushner on Friday on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.

Mexico's outgoing government said on Tuesday it would bestow the award to Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law, a decision quickly met with derision by critics on social media.

Kushner, who also serves as a senior White House adviser, was given the award because of "his significant contributions" to a new North American trade pact agreed to in August, the government said in a statement.

Kushner has often played a key diplomatic role in Trump's administration, meeting with Mexican and other foreign leaders and helping broker the deal to update the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.

Canada joined the pact in late September.

The honor bestowed on Kushner was a trending topic on Twitter, where it appeared to be mostly criticized by prominent Mexicans.

"Giving him the Aztec Eagle reflects a supreme attitude of humiliation and cowardice," Mexican historian Enrique Krauze wrote in one post, noting that Trump called Mexican migrants murderers and rapists during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal wrote that the decision to honor Kushner was "tremendously shameful." Past Order of the Aztec Eagle honorees include Colombian Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be inaugurated on Saturday after winning a landslide election victory in July.

Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump, is expected to attend the swearing-in along with other U.S. officials, including Vice President Mike Pence.