Trump’s wall will cost us more in the long run

Brittany Claramunt
bclaramunt@foghornnews.com
@BrittClaramunt

President Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he will build a wall between the United States and Mexico and that Mexico will pay for it. After visiting with the president of Mexico and a recent phone call during his first week in office, President Enrique Peña Nieto refuses to pay for the wall. So Trump is going to put a 20 percent tariff on anything that comes from Mexico to pay for the wall. In the end, Americans are going to pay for the wall.
If the 20 percent tariff is enacted then whatever we export from Mexico we will try to make here, which means it will be more expensive to buy. For example: avocados, if the tax is implemented then it would cost double or triple the amount we see in the market. It is almost the same thing if we get avocados from local farmers. Another example is the Corpus Christi Trade Center; if merchants import anything from Mexico they will have to pay the tax. For them to make money or break even they would have to raise their prices. Regardless, with the tax in place the prices of our goods will go up.
Tariff is defined as “a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports.” As a nation in the past we have put tariffs on our goods to pay off debt at the time. However, implementing these tariffs often meant we didn’t have a good relationship with the countries. Our relationship with Mexico is already on thin ice. I don’t believe we will go to war with Mexico (again) unless we really provoke them like invading their country. Going to war with Mexico over a tariff that Trump is planning to put on imports is not going to hurt them.
I don’t see the purpose of a wall. People will just get creative to bypass it eventually. Giving our Border Patrol the money, equipment and the manpower to protect the border will have a better result than a big wall. The layout of the wall goes through people’s property and even through a national park. Trump kept to his promise on the wall, but not on the fact that WE are going to pay for it.

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