PM: Trump right to build border wall,

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night lauded President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.

“President Trump is right,” Netanyahu tweeted, in a message that displayed an Israeli and American flag.

“I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea,” he said.

On Thursday, in an interview with Fox News, Trump pointed to Israel as an example of a country where the construction of a wall had successfully stopped refugees and migrants from illegally crossing the border.

“People want protection,” Trump said. “And a wall protects. All you have to do is ask Israel. They were having a total disaster coming across, and they had a wall. It’s 99.9% stoppage,” Trump said.

Former US ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro also took to twitter on Saturday night to comment on the wall plan. He placed Netanyahu’s tweet within the larger context of the relationship between the two leaders, who are scheduled to meet in Washington next month.

“PM Netanyahu’s top aides told me a key goal in Trump’s era was keeping bipartisan support for Israel. Now this?,” Shapiro tweeted.

“Israel’s challenges with Sinai border not similar to US border. Their solution (a fence, not a wall) works for them, would not for us,” Shapiro wrote. He added: “Hard to explain this intervention on a hotly debated issue in domestic US politics. Unless this endorsement is Trump’s demand of Netanyahu for something Netanyahu wants, the quid pro quo. But for what? Canceling the Iran deal? Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem? Supporting building in settlement blocs? To me, it looks like Trump is already squeezing Netanyahu hard. ‘The Art of the Deal.’”

Netanyahu, Shapiro and Trump’s comments come amid growing tensions between the US and Mexico about how to fund the wall’s construction.

The White House on Thursday floated the idea of imposing a 20% tax on goods from Mexico to pay for a wall at the southern US border, sending the peso tumbling and deepening a crisis between the two neighbors.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced on Twitter around midday on Thursday that he was scrapping a planned trip to meet with Trump, who has repeatedly demanded that Mexico pay for a wall on the US border.

Later in the day, White House spokesman Sean Spicer sent the Mexican peso falling to its low for the day when he told reporters that Trump wanted a 20% tax on Mexican imports to pay for construction of the wall.

Spicer gave few details, but his comments resembled an existing idea, known as a border adjustment tax, that the Republican-led US House of Representatives is considering as part of a broad tax overhaul.

The White House said later its proposal was in the early stages. Asked if Trump favored a border adjustment tax, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said such a tax would be “one way” of paying for the border wall.

“It’s a buffet of options,” he said.

Trump said in an interview on Friday that he has the right to impose a tax on imports from Mexico, but there were other options that could be “much more positive” for both countries.

“It’s something that I have the right to do. It’s something I can impose if I want,” Trump said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network.

But Trump, noting he had just spoken with Pena Nieto, said the two countries were “getting along actually very well.”

“So I’m not against something like that but with respect to Mexico, something else could happen which would be much more positive for both Mexico and the United States,” Trump said.

The plan being weighed by House Republicans would exempt export revenues from taxation but impose a 20% tax on imported goods, a significant change from current US policy.

“If you tax exports from Mexico into the United States, you’re going to make things ranging from avocados to appliances to flat-screen TVs, you’re going to make them more expensive,” Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told reporters at the Mexican Embassy in Washington on Thursday night.

Countries like Mexico would not pay such taxes directly. Companies would face the tax if they import products made there into the United States, raising prices for American consumers.

The idea is unpopular with retailers and businesses that sell imported goods in the US. It also has met opposition from some lawmakers worried about the impact on US consumers. Trump himself appeared to criticize the idea in a Wall Street Journal interview last week, saying the House border adjustment provision was “too complicated.”

Even after Trump’s comments, congressional Republicans have continued to discuss the issue with White House officials in an effort to bring them on board with the idea.

Trump, who visited Republican lawmakers at their policy retreat in Philadelphia, told them he would use tax reform legislation to pay for the border wall.

“We’re working on a tax reform bill that will reduce our trade deficits, increase American exports and will generate revenue from Mexico that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route,” he said.

Trump, who took office last week, views the wall, a major promise during his election campaign, as part of a package of measures to curb illegal immigration. Mexico has long insisted it will not heed Trump’s demands to pay for the construction project.

Trump signed an executive order for construction of the wall on Wednesday. The move provoked outrage in Mexico. A planned meeting between Videgaray and US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly was canceled, a department spokeswoman said.

Videgaray said Mexico would work with Trump but that paying for the wall was out of the question.

“There are things that go beyond negotiation,” he said. “This is about our dignity and our pride.”

Pena Nieto, who had been under pressure to cancel the summit, tweeted on Thursday: “We have informed the White House that I will not attend the working meeting planned for next Tuesday with @POTUS [president of the US].”

Trump had tweeted earlier that it would be better for the Mexican leader not to come if Mexico would not pay for the wall. He said later the meeting was canceled by mutual agreement.

Relations have been frayed since Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, characterizing Mexican immigrants as murderers and rapists. His trade rhetoric has hit the Mexican economy, causing consumers to rein in spending and foreign businesses to wait on new investments, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Trump has vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada and slap high tariffs on American companies that have moved jobs south of the border.

Mexico ships 80% of its exports to the US, and about half of Mexico’s foreign direct investment has come from its northern neighbor over the past two decades.

The US runs a $58.8 billion trade deficit with Mexico, according to the latest US government figures. But Mexico is also the United States’ second-largest export market.