I am far from the biggest Trump supporter, but with his decisive victory in the South Carolina Primary this past weekend I thought it would be important to look into some of his policies, specifically how he plans to pay for his famous wall.
If you have watched any debate coverage whatsoever you will know one thing: Donald Trump wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. As far as Republican candidates go, this isn’t a crazy statement on its own. Of the five candidates left running for the GOP all are in support of some sort of border security. What makes Trump stand out, is that he wants to make Mexico pay for this wall.
On the surface this seems like an absurd idea, especially from someone who prides himself on being a dealmaker. When most people hear this they assume that Trump is going to sit down with President Nieto (the President of Mexico) and ask him to cut a check, when in reality it is a lot more intricate than that. In his immigration position paper Mr. Trump outlines how he plans to make Mexico pay for said wall, at least on the surface.
The first thing Trump outlines is he wants to stop all illegal remittance payments. A remittance payment occurs when a foreign worker sends earnings from the country they are currently working in to their native country, or Mexico, in this case.
As you can imagine, this can have a massive impact on both economies, but nowhere in his position paper does Trump indicate how he will determine which payments are, in fact illegal remittance payments. You cannot stop someone from sending their money to whomever they please assuming they earned the wage legally, but at this point in time there is no practical way to determine which wages are legal or illegal.
The second piece to his wall financing plan is to increase fees on all temporary visas from Mexico to the United States. This is much more realistic, at least in that it is possible. How much Trump actually plans on making from this section of his wall plan has yet to be described by the Trump campaign.
In the same vein, Trump also wishes to increase fees on border crossing and increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico. Both of these Trump has identified as “a major source of visa overstays.”
Also mentioned in his position paper are tariffs and foreign aid cuts which “are
also options.”
Tariffs fall into another area of questionable legality since NAFTA went into effect in 1994 banning all tariffs between the United States, Mexico and Canada. These two options seem to be Trump’s last-resort options with which he hopes to “strong arm” Mexico into paying for what is left after his increase on fees.
The only thing that is clear at the end of his position paper is that Trump hopes to make Mexico pay for this wall, even if it is through indirect means with questionable legality.
