In latest shot at Mexico, Trump proposes U.S. penalty for drugs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, hammering on a favorite theme, proposed another idea on Friday for cracking down on what he describes as a crisis of undocumented immigration and drug trafficking on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Without providing details, Trump said he was considering an economic penalty, apart from tariffs on imports, to counter drug smuggling.
Praising Mexico for moving recently against drug traffickers, Trump said, “If they continue that, everything will be fine. If they don’t we’re going to tariff their cars at 25 percent.”
“Also, I’m looking at an economic penalty for all of the drugs that are coming in through the southern border and killing our people,” Trump told reporters in Washington before departing for southern California where he will visit the border.
Trump said in a Friday morning Twitter posting: “Likewise I am looking at an economic penalty for the 500 Billion Dollars in illegal DRUGS that are shipped and smuggled through Mexico and across our Southern Border.”
It was not immediately clear what other penalties he was considering. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for elaboration.
Trump said the drug-related tariff would supplant provisions of the recently negotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as USMCA, which has not been approved by Congress.
“If for any reason Mexico stops apprehending and bringing the illegals back to where they came from, the U.S. will be forced to Tariff at 25% all cars made in Mexico and shipped over the Border to us. If that doesn’t work, which it will, I will close the Border,” Trump said on Twitter on Friday. “This will supercede USMCA.”
Although Trump has several times linked the issues of illegal immigration and drug smuggling as he tries to tighten border security, much of the drug trade is not carried out by migrants but by professional crime gangs that send narcotics to the United States in vehicles through official ports of entry.
TRUMP PLANS
The Republican president’s latest pronouncements, issued informally in rapid succession, came amid a rising flow of migrants from Central America coming through Mexico and showing up at the southern U.S. border.
For years, Trump’s most-often discussed solution to illegal immigration was to build a wall on the border, which he originally said Mexico would pay for. After Mexico refused, he asked U.S. taxpayers to pay for the wall, but Congress refused to provide the money.
He has attempted to circumvent Congress to seize the money for his wall from other accounts by declaring a national emergency, but that strategy is tied up in the courts.
Twenty states have filed a motion to block Trump’s attempt to divert federal funds through an emergency declaration, the New York state attorney general said on Friday.
“This wall is unnecessary, and an abuse of power that will take away resources that could be used to help Americans across our nation,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, said in a Twitter post.
Democrats have generally opposed Trump’s wall proposal, while pushing other types of enhanced border security that they argue would be more effective and less costly than a wall.
Trump will visit Calexico, California, for a tour of the border on Friday, followed by a visit to Los Angeles for a fund-raiser. Late on Friday, he will go to Las Vegas and make a speech there on Saturday.
Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Steve Holland and Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Alistair Bell
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