Trump wants 20% tax on Mexican imports to fund border wall
28 Jan 2017 12:08 AM IST
The US has warned it may impose a 20 per cent tax on imports from countries with a trade deficit with it to fund a wall President Donald Trump wants to build along America's southern border with Mexico, the White House has said.
The proposal, however, is currently only for Mexico, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters travelling with Trump from Philadelphia to Washington DC aboard Air Force One.
This is one of the ways to pay for the wall that the US is planning to construct along the US-Mexico border. But on a broader scale, such a statement from Trump administration indicates imports from other countries - like India and China - could also be hit by the tax proposal, given the trade deficit the US has with them.
"When you look at the plan that's taking shape now, using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit with, like Mexico.
"If you tax that USD 50 billion at 20 per cent of imports, which is by the way a practice that 160 other countries do... By doing it we can do USD 10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone," Spicer said.
"Right now we are focused on Mexico, but I think as we look comprehensively at our trade situation and countries that we have a deficit for, this is something the president has been talking about holistically," he said.
The US president has talked about a border tax. "In particular companies that move out, ship things back in. But in this case, this really handles, is focused more on the immigration piece," he said. "Remember, keep in mind there are 160 other countries that do just this. We are one of the only major countries, in fact probably the only major country that doesn't treat imports this way," Spicer said.
"In fact, we currently tax exports, not imports. This gets us in line frankly with the policies that the other countries around the world treat our products," he said.
"If you think about what a border tax on imports from countries like Mexico that we have a huge trade deficit does, that's really going to provide the funding," he added.
"But the other net positive that you have to realise is that through the wall, not only do we secure our border but I think we are going to save additional money", he said.
Trump defends limited entry for Muslims, non-committal on Pak
US President Donald Trump has defended his controversial plan to limit the entry of people from some Muslim countries to combat terrorism even as he was non-committal whether nations like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia would be figuring in the proposed visa ban list.
When asked about countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia figuring in the list, he said, "You're going to see. You're going to see. We're going to have extreme vetting in all cases. And I mean extreme. And we're not letting people in if we think there's even a little chance of some problem."
"We are excluding certain countries, but for other countries, we're going to have extreme vetting. It's going to be very hard to come in," Trump told ABC News, refusing to be pinned down on which countries he was talking about.
Trump denied that it was a ban on Muslims. "No it's not the Muslim ban, but it's countries that have tremendous terror," he said.
"Right now, it's very easy to come in. It's going to be very, very hard. I don't want terror in this country. You look at what happened in San Bernardino. You look at what happened all over. You look at what happened in the World Trade Center, OK? I mean, take that as an example. People don't even bring that up," he said.
Asked if he was concerned this would anger Muslims around the world, he said, "Anger? There's plenty of anger right now. How can you have more?". "The world is a mess. The world is as angry as it gets. What, you think this is going to cause a little more anger? The world is an angry place. All of this has happened. We went into Iraq. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq. We shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. The world is a total mess. The world is a mess," the President said.
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