Obama rejects Trump plan to force Mexico to pay for border wall

washington — President Barack Obama on Tuesday dismissed as “half-baked” Donald Trump’s plan to force Mexico to pay for a border wall by holding hostage the money its citizens send home from the United States.

The Republican frontrunner’s promise to build the wall and force Mexico to foot the estimated $8 billion bill is a cornerstone of his under-fire campaign to win the US presidency.

In a memo that the flamboyant New York tycoon handed over to

the candidate said he would force Mexico’s hand by threatening to cut off billions of dollars sent home by Mexican immigrants.

“This is just one more example of something that is not thought through and is primarily put forward for political consumption,” Obama told a news conference in response.

“The notion that we’re going to track every Western Union bit of money that’s being sent to Mexico: good luck with that,” he said.

Remittances are one of the most important sources of income for Mexico along with oil and tourism.

In 2014, more than $24 billion was wired into Mexico from overseas, including payments from immigrants not just in the United States but in other countries such as Britain and Canada, according to the World Bank.

The president said cutting off remittances, many of which come from legal immigrants sending money to their families, would be “impractical”.

The policy was ill conceived, he

This is just one more example of something that is not thought through and is primarily put forward for political consumption

Barack Obama, US president

said, warning that if the Mexican economy collapsed as a result, more immigrants would flock to the United States to look for work.

People expect the US president and other elected officials to address serious problems by proposing effective policies “that have been examined,” analysed and which take unintended consequences into account, he said.

“They don’t expect half-baked notions coming out of the White House. We can’t afford that.”

In the memo, Trump threatened to change a rule under the Patriot Act that would cut off a portion of the funds sent to Mexico through money transfers, the Post reported.