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U.S. President Donald Trump
said on Thursday that if he decides to apply tariffs on car imports from Mexico , the rate would be set at 25 percent .
In his latest warning to Mexico to tighten border security, Trump threatened earlier on Thursday to eventually slap tariffs on car imports from Mexico unless it did more to stop drug trafficking.
Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House , said Mexico had done a good job in the past four days in dealing with migrants on its southern border headed to the United States.
This morning, however, through his Twitter account, Trump also threatened to apply an “economic penalty” to Mexico for allegedly permitting drug trafficking across the border.
Trump repeated the same message soon after in an official statement before heading to the southern border in California , though he gave no further details.
The warning came one day after Trump backtracked on his threat to close the Mexico-U.S. border . On the other hand, he threatened Mexico with tariffs on cars if it didn’t stop the flow of migrants through the U.S. southern border within a year.
However, a few hours after mentioning the one-year deadline, Trump left open the possibility of applying sanctions to trade with Mexico before said period.
The statesman insisted on the idea this morning, assuring that as long as Mexico continues to do a “very good job” in deporting undocumented migrants arriving at the border with Guatemala, no sanctions would be applied.
As usual, the U.S. President presented his own imaginative view of the migration crisis, ignoring the fact that Mexico deported more migrants than the United States in the first two months of 2019 , just as it has done for several years. As of February, the United States had deported little more than 12 thousand migrants and sent them to Mexico, a measure that some would deem counterproductive. Meanwhile, Mexico had deported more than 13.5 thousand migrants by the end of February.
In a press conference, Trump denied that he had changed his mind regarding the border shutdown, and claimed that the possibility would still be on the table. “I would rather go with tariffs,” he stated.
If said sanctions are applied to Mexico, Trump predicted that his country would “make more money,” despite the fact that many U.S. companies manufacture components on both sides of the border.
“The tariffs will work, just like they worked with steel. Our steel industry is doing very well right now, and it’s all thanks to the tariffs, same goes for aluminum,” he commented.
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