So what do we do? We tax the people! Trump suggests a 20% tariff on exports to Mexico. This is actually enough to pay for the wall, but would seriously injure Americans.
1. Morale. We were promised that Mexico will pay for this wall. But now we have to? Our business have to?
2. 40% of American business rely on other countries included in the NAFTA agreement (Canada and Mexico) for assembly. We make the equipment and maybe Mexico puts it together and maybe we send it up to Canada for a game of hockey. I dunno, but we shift things around a ton and having that be discouraged, could result in some SERIOUS lay offs. Like, Obama did something like this in 2009, but with China and just on tires and things were not looking to hot for some people. And this tariff will apply to all exports.
Okay, but here's where my inner conservative is a little intrigued. Get this.
It would be so sucky if we had this tariff because we're paying for a dumb wall that I personally think is dumb. But, it would force American companies to vertically integrate or at the very least, operate within their own country. This increases factory usage in America and would create more jobs. We would have a pretty crappy lull for awhile to wait for the companies to catch up instead of avoiding the tariff by any legal or illegal means. But it could be something healthy for America.
Secondly, this was actually a pretty interesting power play. 80% of Mexico's economy relies on American exports. Threatening Mexicos flow of jobs from America could help force their hand into paying for the wall or at the very least, staff having a conversation about how we pay for it as a single land mass.
I hate to say it, but Trump stumbled on something dangerous and kinda cool like the beginning scenes of poltergeist.
But be warned, we all know how ugly poltergeist got.
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