Mexico’s President Proposes Retaliatory Tariffs to Counter Trump
However, it looks like Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is ready to work with Trump to avoid tariffs.
So…do we have a Mexican standoff?
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum proposed retaliatory tariffs to counter President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs on all products from her country if she didn’t stop drugs and illegal aliens from spilling over the border.
From The Associated Press:
Sheinbaum said she was willing to engage in talks on the issues, but said drugs were a U.S. problem.
“One tariff would be followed by another in response, and so on until we put at risk common businesses,” Sheinbaum said, referring to U.S. automakers that have plants on both sides of the border.
She said Tuesday that Mexico had done a lot to stem the flow of migrants, noting “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border.”
She also said Mexico had worked to stem the flow of drugs like the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, despite an influx of weapons smuggled in from the United States. She said the flow of drugs “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society.”
Sheinbaum also criticized U.S. spending on weapons, saying the money should instead be spent regionally to address the problem of migration. “If a percentage of what the United States spends on war were dedicated to peace and development, that would address the underlying causes of migration,” she said.
I’m kind of shocked the AP admitted this fact about Sheinbaum: She is “a stern leftist ideologue trained in radical student protest movements.”
Could you imagine what Sheinbaum and VP Kamala Harris would have done if the latter won on November 5 instead of Trump?
So, yeah. Mexican standoff?
Also, you know the lobbying effort began before November 5, trying to gain exemptions or arbitrary enforcement. I bet the effort intensified on November 6.
Tariffs are a bad idea. Yes, they would hurt the consumer. Do you think our bills are high now? They would also hurt the workforce.
I wonder who will blink first.
Now, on the other hand, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had a great phone call with Trump.
Trump also threatened Canada with 25% tariffs for the same reason: drugs and illegal aliens.
Trudeau immediately contacted Trump after he posted his threats on Truth Social:
I had a good call with Donald Trump last night again. We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together.
It was a good call. This is something that we can do, laying out the facts, moving forward in constructive ways. This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do.
One of the really important things is that we be all pulling together on this, the Team Canada approach is what works. That’s where, putting aside partisanship, that’s where I reached out immediately to [Ontario Premier] Doug Ford to agree with him that we would have a first minister’s meeting this week to talk about the United States. Talked with [Quebec Premier] Francois Legault and some other premieres as well. There’s work to do, but we know how to do it.
JUST IN: Canadian PM Justin Trudeau says he had a "good" call with Trump after the president-elect vowed to slap 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
The comment comes as Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum also scrambled to contact Trump.
Trudeau not only said the call was good… pic.twitter.com/oVlDp2B8ut
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 26, 2024
Trudeau already announced Canada would limit immigration after the country messed up after allowing too many people in when the pandemic ended.
Trudeau also admitted the government should have stepped in sooner:
Trudeau’s remarks came during a nearly seven-minute video he posted online over the weekend, during which the prime minister laid out the reasons why Canada was putting limits on its temporary foreign worker program, while also reducing the number of permanent residents allowed entry into Canada by as much as 27% by 2027.
Trudeau largely blamed “bad actors,” such as corporations and universities, for enticing immigrants to come to Canada, where there was a massive labor shortage following the pandemic. He pointed out that many of these predatory entities lured hordes of immigrant workers with false promises of college degrees, permanent residency, jobs and more.
However, Trudeau also suggested that the federal government was at least partly to blame for not “turn[ing] off the taps faster” after the country’s labor shortage waned.
“Looking back, when the post-pandemic boom cooled and businesses no longer needed the additional labor help, as a federal team, we could have acted quicker, and turned off the taps faster,” said Trudeau. “Immigration is primarily a federal job. We have the levers to rein it in. So we are.”
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Comments
The Cartels are Mexicos problem. They are a “narco terror state”. No sense going through a dance here. Just declare Mexico a terrorist state and close the border. Have the State Department declare a travel ban to and from Mexico. When the cartels are dismembered and broken then we might consider lifting the ban.
While you’re certainly correct that the cartels are Mexico’s problem, there’s a good reason why the Mexican government hasn’t dealt with the cartels —
— the Mexican government would lose. Especially their leaders.
Losing (and with that one’s death) tends to focus the mind quite nicely. The government doesn’t have the military to hunt down the cartels adequately well, whereas the cartels have a clear ability to assassinate anyone they wish in Mexico. Guess who loses first?
It would take someone like Nayib Armando Bukele (El Salvador’s tough as nails president) to dent the cartels, and he’d be at a high risk. I don’t think Mexico has anyone like him.
You are only half right. The other half of the Mexican pols are on the take from the cartels and they will never support a military action against them.
As the saying goes: “Plomo o Plata”
And even then maybe not.
Mexican banditos have stymied some of the finest military talent the USA has had to offer.
The place has a reputation as bad as The Stan.
When in the last few centuries has there ever been a better case for issuance of letters of marque and reprisal? No need to get the US Army involved… just use a third party willing to get the job done for a price.
Mexico thinks they are still dealing with Sleepy Joe. We have a $100 BILLION dollar deficit with them. They can only lose.
Next move is to shut down remittances to Mexico. Currently about $65 billion per year.
Drink Kentucky and Tennessee bourbon and leave the tequila in Mexico.
Feff em. Mexico needs the USA more than the USA needs Mexico. It will cave to the Trump wave.
And we should also invade Canada, arrest Trudeau, and liberate it from their infestation of marxist meat puppets.
I read that in Project 2025 somewhere…
General Motors and Ford will be unhappy. They will need to build their “American” cars here, or just drop all pretense and become 100% car importers from low-tariff countries.
Agreed.
And the price for General Motors and and Ford cars and trucks will then increase in price by at least $5,000 for each car and truck. The American working class consumer will have to pay the price. I hope you have been saving your money pay for all of this.
The “American working class consumer” can barely afford to make the rent payment nowadays, much less the cost of a brand new vehicle.
No thanks to your pal FJB.
Mexico won’t risk their gravy train being shut down. They’ll cave.
Not if they stop putting all the price fluffing options in that the consumer does not want on the base models.
That bird already flew under Biden, dipwit.
A moderately nice “golf car(t)” now sells for over twice as much as my first car.
Mexico is corrupt top to bottom, there is nothing we need from them. Screw the auto companies. Shut the border down and start wasting cartels.
Tax remittances at 90% and see how fast Claudia changes her tune.
Which really should be done anyway.
No, it shouldn’t be done anyway. It would be not only bad policy but morally wrong.
But it can be done temporarily to grab her attention. The benefit from that would outweigh the harm.
Why is it “morally wrong” to stop illegals from funding their families off the back of US citizens?
Because it’s their money that they earned, and they have the fundamental human right to use it to support their families, just as we all do. And what you’re proposing isn’t even just for illegals, it’s for all Mexicans, so it’s even worse.
So as a long-term policy it would be immoral as well as a bad idea. But as a short-term weapon it’s a legitimate part of the USA’s arsenal, a measure of state, and thus just as acceptable as dropping a bomb somewhere, which has collateral damage. For an important enough goal, a country has the right to do it.
“It would be not only bad policy but morally wrong.”
Hogwash.
I say shut down all remittances. Consider it funding being sent to a terrorist state and confiscate.
The remittances are not being sent to a state. Even if Mexico were a terrorist state, the remittances are not going to it. They’re going to individuals who need the money and are presumed innocent of any wrongdoing. Confiscatory taxes would be theft.
But a temporary measure to grab the Mexican government’s attention would be a legitimate measure of state.
Drugs are a US problem?
Fine, then we’re sending the SEALs and Marines into Mexico to clean out the cartels that the government is too corrupt to stop.
Early in US history a group of Irish liberation “advocates” set up camp on the Great Lakes and made attacks on British holdings in Canada. The Brits retaliated, destroying their camp. The US government didn’t issue a protest, because our government had failed to control the violence coming from our territory and another power had cleaned up the mess.
Mexico is in the same condition. They’re not controlling the violence coming from their territory and landing on Americans. They have no grounds to object to anything we do against the slavers, cartel, or corrupt officials.
That’s why we have the Anti-Filibuster Act.
People nowadays seem to have forgotten what the word “filibuster” means. It’s only used nowadays in the context of the senate maneuver, and many people nowadays seem to think that’s an intentional part of our system, enshrined in the constitution or something, and would be astonished if they understood that its very name labels it an act of piracy, which it originally was. It’s legitimate now, only because long usage has made it legitimate. The senate has had many opportunities to abolish it and has always refused, so that makes it legitimate.
We should do what the US does best: artillery barrages, missile strikes, precision bombing. Also go to deadly force protecting the border.
The cartels have declared war and we should retaliate. The Mex pres, Sheinbaum. said drugs were a U.S. problem. We need to eradicate that problem.
What do we provide Mexico other than the materials to produce cheap garbage to sell here?
A market for China’s fentanyl?
Canada Responds to Trump Tariffs – Trudeau Talks About “Feelings”, Doug Ford Says, “Hey, We’re not Mexicans”
And? How would that impact us? They’d buy more of their crap from China? I think we can wait that one out. We’d have to move auto manufacturing back to America? Golly, that’d be a bummer.
Admittedly, if they put a tariff on guns flowing over their border, it might make Eric Holder sad. But the rest of us not so much.
The cartels get their guns from the same place as the Mexican military — Mexico’s military stores.
You will read that the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico were originally sold in the USA.
What you won’t read is that that refers only to the majority of the guns traced, and the Mexican authorities only bother tracing guns when they already have grounds to believe they came from the USA. There’s no point otherwise. So yes, when they already think a crime gun came from the USA they’re usually right. When they don’t think it did, which is the vast majority of the time, they’re probably right then too.
Also, the fact that a gun was originally sold in the USA tells us nothing about how it ended up in Mexico. They want us to think that it means a Mexican criminal went and bought it legally in the USA and smuggled it over the border, but far more likely it was stolen from its legitimate owner, who bought it many years earlier.
But the majority of the cartels’ guns come from the military.
Democrats have been selling the lie about the guns in Mexico coming from the US since at least the primary between Hillary and Obama. I thought they’d given up on it
No, they’ve been doubling down on it ever since. There’s even this ridiculous lawsuit that’s up before the Supreme Court, where the Mexican government is purporting to sue the entire US gun manufacturing industry for daring to produce products that eventually end up in Mexico and used by criminals. Like suing a matches company because some of their product ends up in Mexico and is used by arsonists.
And a moron could sort them out. If it has a serial number, it’s probably US. If it doesn’t, it’s not.
Seal the border, recall our ambassador and suspend all trade.
We have little states that have larger GDPs than Mexico.
We do not need them.
At all.
Hasta La vista baby!
BMW has a big plant in San Luis Potosi. I’d love for them to expand Plant Spartanburg and let Mexico suffer the loss of jobs by shutting down that facility.
Let’s see how it works out for the commie tramp when she collapses her own economy.
She’ll stop. She’ll say one thing and do another. She has no choice.
I don’t believe she has thought her clever plan all the way through. There are obviously many, many daily household items which are sourced from the United States – everything from California rice to canned soup, and no doubt toilet paper.
Putting tariffs on American goods, will not harm U.S. manufacturers much as, well, people don’t stop buying toilet paper, et al. The only impact will be on Mexican consumers who will see higher prices. Yes, every good currently purchased from the U.S. CAN be sourced elsewhere, but…
1. It takes time to source and ship goods from China or elsewhere overseas. There will be several months of high prices and shortages during the transition.
2, Prices, after shipping, probably wouldn’t be a lot cheaper than tariffed U.S. goods.
3. Tariffing cars and machinery is going to impact the employment of a lot of well-paid Mexican workers
However, I don’t believe the counter argument holds true regarding U.S. imports FROM Mexico.
Know who is going to be real happy when automobiles from Mexico are hit with tariffs? U.S. auto unions.
Here’s what we import from Mexico; you get 80% of the impact from 4 or 5 categories.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports/mexico
America win, win, win. One small step for MAGA.
Americans won’t like to pay.
Mexican’s CAN’T pay.
I don’t blame our drug problem on Mexico. I blame it on America.
No one is stopping us from arresting every user and addict and taking away the customer base. Drugs is not a supply side issue, it’s a demand side. Stop the demand and you stop the supply.
In this corner: Montezuma’s Revenge.
In this corner: Temu toilet paper.
That’s actually too disgusting even for popcorn.
Sheinbaum is certainly a strange name for a Mexican.
Why? Mexican beer is largely lagers because of the Germans who settled in Mexico.
True. But this particular Sheinbaum is not German but Jewish. Which still leaves your point perfectly valid. A Mexican Jew is no less Mexican than an American Jew is American. A president Sheinbaum of Mexico is no more remarkable than a president Goldwater of the USA. (Goldwater himself wasn’t Jewish, but he came by the name from his Jewish grandfather.)
The comments I agree most enthusiastically with are the ones about taxing the remittances and putting Mexico on a do-not-travel list as Cuba is today. These are two things that would hurt them deeply, quickly. Travel/Hospitality accounts for almost 9% of Mexico’s GDP with much of it driven by US consumers.
However, the automotive industry is a lot more complicated than many realize. Not only does Mexico assemble many cars that are then exported to the US, it also produces more than 40% of the component parts of US-assembled vehicles. Because of the reality of just-in-time supply chains that dominate the auto industry, it wouldn’t take much of a disruption to shutter every single US assembly plant…which would bad. It would be wise just to leave the auto element alone, for now. But, I do think Trump should make an example of Mexico and her leftist President.
Dollars sent out of the US help the US. They disappear from the money supply and can be replaced by the Fed until they show up again, in effect reducing the deficit.
Remittance money is unlikely to be stashed under mattresses. It shows up here again in short order.
IMO, all the more reason to rip off the band aid and return ‘US Manufacturing’ to the USA. Globalism and interconnected economies as a concept is all well and good …. until there’s a dispute. Tell the automakers to be prepared to pack up the equipment from those plants and bring it to the USA.
Either Mexico shows itself to be a friendly neighbor who understands they are utterly dependent upon the continued goodwill of their much larger, more powerful neighbor to the North or they choose to be intransigent and suffer the consequences and there’s a whole wide array of consequences to choose from. Start with closing all land crossings, seaports and airports to entry from Mexico for two weeks and simultaneously put a hold on financial transactions from US Banks/financial firms with Mexico as an attention getter. Escalate as and if needed.
Magna, Gestamp, Feherer and a multitude of tier 1, 2 and 3 automotive suppliers in the SE are standing by and salivating.
Sorry, but that is silly and completely incorrect.
Tariffs are great instruments. The cost of not using tariffs is far higher than the cost of using them. Further, the idea of an economy without borders is as ridiculous as the idea of a nation without borders. The US economy is the jewel of the world. EVERYONE wants to sell in the American economy. We are in a very advantageous and nearly unique position in history. All people and companies and nations are clamoring to be able to participate in our market. That is the value that WE OWN. To argue that that value should just be given away to companies and nations – especially to so many that are looking to do us harm, on top of all this – is just crazy.
Too many people refuse to recognize that value of American citizenship (it is worth tons and people would understand that directly if there were a market allowed for it) and love to print up American citizenships like they are worth nothing. Eventually, they will be.
In the same vein, people refuse to recognize the value of the American market and are willing to let everyone in the world in for free to take what they want and displace American companies as they wish. Companies and nations would pay dearly for access to our market, but instead, we are actually paying them. It’s nuts.
This is sheer economic ignorance, and also contrary to the fundamental values of classical liberalism, nowadays known as conservatism.
Go read The Wealth of Nations.
Also Hazlitt, Friedman, and many more recent writers, but Smith is mandatory reading. He hammers the point in, and the 18th-century language and style just make the point sink in better. Like Paine, or the Federalist, etc.
Tariffs are terrible economic policy. They hurt the country imposing them more than they do the one against which they’re imposed. But they’re a legitimate weapon to be used sparingly and temporarily in a dispute. Dropping a bomb on an enemy is also economically costly, and should never be a routine thing, but when it’s needed it’s legitimate.
More economic stupidity. We already proved how utterly wrong you and your fellow economic idiots are. Trump put tariffs in place in his first administration: prices didn’t rise nor did they “hurt the country imposing them more than they do the one against which they’re imposed”.
Reading a book that is fundamentally flawed doesn’t change history, and history proves you incorrect.
If you reject free trade you belong on the left. This is the most fundamental principle of what we now call conservatism, going all the way back to the Anti-Corn-Law League, which launched what is now the conservative political movement.
First of all, it is not “free trade” that is always talked about but “free importation” into America. You, of course, are too stupid to understand the difference.
Secondly, the idea that everyone on the right must be for open economic borders (i.e. no economic sovereignty) is INSANE and ridiculous. Fits you to a tee.
“This is the most fundamental principle…”
More hogwash. We have never had free trade. We have, as primordial correctly notes, free access to the US market that is never reciprocated.
People like you, ignorant of actual history and economics would have us all starve on some altar of your perceived “conservatism”. And you are always aligned with the left on these issues.
You idiots, that is free trade. Allowing imports isn’t a price we pay in order to get exports; it’s exactly the opposite. Imports are good for us; exports are not. The only reason we want to export things is so we can pay for imports. Exports are the price, imports are the reward. So while bilateral free trade is best, unilateral free trade is better than restricted trade.
This is basic economics, and fundamental to the cause of what we now call conservatism; if you reject it you have no place in the big tent. Get thee to a commune.
LOL.
How big is the Mexican market for … anything??
You’re not dealing with a government in Mexico, you’re dealing with the cartels.
The Mexican government was the same even before the cartels existed. This is just how Mexico has pretty much always been.
One thing that people tend to forget is the Mexican-American war of the 1840’s. (Recall the Marine Corps hymn phrase, “From the halls of Montezuma….”). The American military went in, and well, kicked some ass quite easily, capturing the capital which resulted in a prompt surrender.
” Hurray, hurray!” shouted the Mexicans! “We’re going to become part of the United States!”
We had a hell of a time wiggling out of THAT swamp, and telling them, “Sorry, no thanks, amigo.”
The cartels are the Mexican government; the Mexican government is the cartels.
Freeze these people out, and bring back “Speedy Gonzalez”, another casualty (with Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben) of the woke crap of the past few years.
“Tariffs are a bad idea. Yes, they would hurt the consumer. Do you think our bills are high now? They would also hurt the workforce.”
Baloney, pure baloney. Same argument all you economic nitwits made in the last go around. You were wrong then, entirely wrong, and you learned nothing. You have no clue how real economics work just like all those business school professors that have no knowledge of economic history.
…
…
“I wonder who will blink first.”
LOL, how hard is this. Mexico depends upon the USA. The USA has no need for Mexico. End of story. The cartel owned hardcore communist leader of Mexico will blink and soon.
Agreed. The first problem with Free Trade arguments against tariffs is that they rest on the false premise that we have Free Trade now. We don’t, instead we have globalism and interconnected financial payment and financing systems in a stubbornly unsafe world that has put the USA into a comparative disadvantage in many aspects.
The second problem with Free Trade is that proponents seem to view the world through the lens of the consumer. They ignore the fact that the consumer is also a worker, producer of their own goods/services, an investor and very importantly a taxpaying Citizen of a Nation State. The Economic lens of the consumer IS an important perspective to view world events through but there are lots of problems that don’t fit neatly into its scope.
I can do without illegal drugs, avocados and whatever else we import from Mexico if it seals the border
I like my tequila, but a fine bourbon nourishes the soul.
“despite an influx of weapons smuggled in from the United States.”
Stuff it where the sun don’t shine, chickie. That old roadrunner don’t fly anymore.
11/9: Customs Announces Massive Seizure Of Ammunition At U.S.-Mexico Border
Hey, three guesses which way it was going?