Trump pitches a border tax to pay for wall
Earlier, Mexican president had canceled meeting amid tweet storm
Washington — President Donald Trump proposed a 20% border tax on imports from Mexico on Thursday, as his bid to build a wall along the U.S.Mexico border drove a diplomatic divide between the two countries and led Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to cancel a scheduled meeting with Trump.
Trump, speaking to a congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia, said he and Peña Nieto “agreed” to the cancellation; the president said he has made it clear to Mexico that it will finance the proposed wall and that the United States will seek changes to trade agreements with its southern neighbor.
“Unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless and I want to go a different route,” Trump said. “We have no choice.”
Meanwhile, Trump pitched through aides his plan to force Mexico to finance the proposed wall: a 20% tax on imports from that country. That, however, was a short-lived declaration.
Shortly after arriving back at the White House
Press Secretary Sean Spicer seemed to backpedal from the tax proposal, saying it was only one option to pay for the wall.
“There are clearly a bunch of ways it can be done,” Spicer said. It was the third informal press “gaggle” of the day in which Spicer addressed ways to pay for the wall.
“We’re not rolling anything out,” Spicer said. “It’s going to be a work in progress.”
The back-and-forth on the tax followed the drama surrounding the meeting with the Mexican president. Earlier Thursday, Peña Nieto said: “This morning we have informed the White House I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday.”
Trump broached the possibility of cancellation in a pair of tweets earlier Thursday that also complained about trade relations, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada: “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.”
He added: “If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting.”
Peña Nieto, who had been scheduled to meet with Trump on Jan. 31, canceled after publicly condemning Trump’s executive order Wednesday authorizing construction of the wall.
Again rejecting Trump’s claim that Mexico will finance the barrier, Peña Nieto said, “I regret and reject the decision of the U.S. to build the wall.”
Spicer said one way to pay for the wall would be a border tax to be included in an overall tax reform package.
New legislation would be used “as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico,” Spicer said.
Trump, who claimed during his campaign that bad trade deals have sent U.S. jobs to other countries, has also said he will pursue changes to NAFTA or void the deal altogether. In his meeting with congressional Republi-Thursday, cans, Trump said he has made clear to the Mexicans that NAFTA is “a terrible deal, a total disaster for the United States.”
Mexican Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said Thursday that cancellation of the Trump-Peña Nieto meeting will create uncertainty around the bilateral relationship.