© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
In the past, Trump has said that the initial funds for the wall would come from US taxpayers, and later be reimbursed by Mexico; however, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto says that Mexico will not pay for any wall.
"I regret and reject the decision of the United States to continue building a wall that, that for years, far from uniting us, divides us," Peña Nieto said in a taped message on Twitter.
"Mexico does not believe in walls. I've said time again; Mexico will not pay for any wall," Peña Nieto said.
In response, Trump tweeted on Thursday that if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the cost of the wall, that he will cancel the upcoming meeting planned for January 31st. The two leaders were supposed to meet on Thursday to talk about immigration, trade and drug-war cooperation.
"The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost," the president tweeted. "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting."
Mexico will pay for the wall "one way or another," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said during the Thursday briefing. He announced plans to impose a 20 percent border tax on Mexican imports into the US.
The 20 percent tax on annual Mexican imports would raise $10 billion a year to pay for the border wall, which is estimated to cost between $8 billion and $20 billion, Spicer said.
"By doing it that we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That's really going to provide the funding," Spicer told reporters aboard Air Force One, according to CNN.
Comment: Right, so the US taxpayer will foot the bill for the wall if they buy Mexican products. So people may slow or stop buying Mexican products hurting Mexico and then not having enough funds for the wall. What a plan!
In his first interview in the White House, Trump reaffirmed that Mexico will reimburse the payment for the wall, saying "there will be a payment, it will be in a form. Perhaps a complicated form... We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico," Trump told ABC's David Muir. Trump added that the construction on the wall would start "very soon, as soon as we can physically do it."
Reader Comments
The southwest can grow most of what Mexico provides. Bring the jobs back to the US.
The real reason so many Mexicans have come to the US is NAFTA, subsidized big agriculture destroyed small agriculture in Mexico almost overnight. Trump should stay on point and scrap NAFTA - it'll hurt us more than them though.
The stuff they sell us will be tough to source domestically quickly enough to prevent major price increases (oil, car parts), some of the AG products they sell us cannot be sourced locally. The stuff we export (mostly AG) they can mostly supply from other markets.
Not that we shouldn't have control of our border, but we shouldn't (and their "leaders") shouldn't have passed trade deals we knew would collapse their subsistence/artisan agriculture.
You gotta love how clueless Trump is when speaking:
"A nation without borders is not a nation" as he plans on ponying up even more money to the largest non-nation recipient of US $ on the planet - Israel.
Without Mexicans will wages remain the same.
I don't think so...Up they go.
So the Southwest may have the capability & means but most in the US wont be able to afford the produce.
And that will drive the cost of imports from Mexico even higher.
Just what most people need.
Strange days indeed...
If you don't know what they mean...!!!
At the funny farm you can buy plastic vegetables and other high quality imitation products for only 3 or 4 times as much as you would have to pay for real food or honest, heart-felt services.
This is a great bargain.
We are lucky to live at the funny farm, where our leaders keep us happy and well-nourished.
ned, out
But trump, you should go after the legal thieves, multi national corporations. In tired of these politicians and their idiotic solutions to problems they caused