WASHINGTON, May 31, 2019 — White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday said President Trump’s plan to levy as much as a 25 percent tax on Americans’ purchases of Mexican imports is necessary because Congress won’t do his bidding on immigration.
“Congress should actually fix the laws and we wouldn’t have this problem,” Sanders said while speaking to reporters outside the West Wing.
Sanders conceded that Americans should not have to bear the brunt of Trump’s trade policies, suggested the tariffs would be made unnecessary if Mexico were to close its’ border with Guatemala or forcibly return the “outrageous numbers” of US-bound migrants to their countries of origin.
“They have absolute authority to do a lot more than what they are doing,” she said before suggesting that Mexico has the legal authority to keep migrants from leaving the country through its northern border.
“They see this and they have the ability to stop it. They also have the legal authority to return them back home.”
“If they take that action, it will make a huge difference and we’re simply asking them to do that.”
On Thursday, Trump announced that he’d impose a five percent tariff on all imports from Mexico beginning June 10, unless Mexico took action to stop South and Central American migrants from reaching the United States.
According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Mexico is the United States’ third-largest trading partner and second-largest source of imported goods. In 2018, Americans imported $371.9 billion worth of goods from Mexico, including $94 billion in vehicles $64 billion in electrical machinery $63 billion of other machinery, and $15 billion in medical instruments. It is also the United States’ largest supplier of agricultural products, having sold $26 billion worth of fruits, vegetables, and other products here in 2018.
If Mexico does not satisfy the Trump administration’s demands, the President has threatened to raise tariffs on all Mexican imports as high as 25 percent, meaning Americans will pay as much as an additional 25 percent tax on anything they purchase that originated in Mexico.
Sanders dismissed concerns that the new tariffs would impact plans for Congress to ratify the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement he has touted as a replacement for the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement, and said lawmakers should vote for the USMCA when their constituents would still have to pay higher tariffs.
“They [Congress] should go through with it because it’s good for American workers and it’s good policy. It’s good for farmers, it’s good for manufacturers, it’s good for unions, it’s good for everybody,” she said. “It’s a great deal and it’s something that we should move forward with.”
When reminded that NAFTA — currently the law of the land in the United States, Mexico and Canada — prohibits tariffs on at least half of Mexican imports, Sanders ignored the question and said Trump “is concerned about national security” and “protecting Americans.”
“That’s his number one focus,” she said.