Although I’d rather him have started with a fairly hefty tax on remittances sent back to home countries – but this should work:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1134240653926232064
And it has already gotten Mexico’s attention:
THAT WAS QUICK: Mexico’s President Begs Trump For Friday Meeting on Just Announced Tariffs
Just hours after President Trump announced he will be imposing 5% tariffs on Mexican imports over illegal immigration, Mexico’s president Lopez Obrador sent Trump a letter begging for a meeting to work toward a solution. “Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador asks Trump to have U.S. officials meet with the Mexican foreign minister in Washington on Friday to seek a solution that benefits both nations,” Reuters reported.
I think this is a rather easy fix (especially compared to the China scenario) – you want us to buy your goods; we want you to either stop or make it MUCH harder for illegals to cross your border into the US. If you don’t want to do the latter, there will be a fiscal consequence because you are making it OUR financial problem long term.
I’ll say it again. The traditional way that tariffs have been used has been to protect American industry. Trump, on the other hand, is using it as a diplomatic tool – far different usage with a far more different outcome even if the chattering class is yammering that tariffs are nothing more than a hidden tax on Americans. Well, yeah; tariffs are a tax.
Well guess what – so are all these other countries doing the “wink” and allowing their citizens out, often without proper documentation, to come to America. You don’t think PAYING for all those illegals isn’t a tax on American citizens as well? And they’ve been getting away with it for decades. So Trump is just doing diplomatic ju-jitsu in turning it back around. And, he is using it to further American interests – he was elected to stop illegal immigration. Full Stop.
We’ve seen how Mexico was allowing illegal immigration flow across its border to the point of actually helping illegal aliens get closer to the US border – we wrote some of how the caravans were being treated and hustled along. When Trump had had enough and started to use economics to make the point that Mexico should stop, the evidence was clear that the new Mexican administration got the picture and tightened things up – the large caravans started to dry up.
With some of that effort gone lax, the next biggest economic tool was picked up. We ARE Mexico’s biggest trading partner – they can’t afford to lose access to our markets. Trump knows that and so do they. There will be a meeting of the minds but if I was Trump, I’d be making the price to pay just that much more expensive. Tried to make it inexpensive (relatively speaking) first and when that bunch of carrots didn’t do the job, time for the stick.
You know, the one that the rather Famous Progressive had as part of his meme (“…and carry a big stick”).
