Trump eye Mexican import tax to build border wall

President of the United States of America, Mr. Donald Trump, on Thursday, said he will seek a tax on goods imported from Mexico and use the revenue to build a border wall.

The White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, who disclosed the plan after the Mexican president, Mr. Enrique Pena Nieto, cancelled a visit to Washington, amid a row sparked by the question of who will pay for the wall.

Meanwhile, soon after revealing it, the White House said that was only one option.

Spicer told reporters that the President had discussed the funding proposal with lawmakers, and it could be part of a tax reform package the US Congress is planning.

He said that a 20 per cent tax could generate approximately $10 billion (N3050,000,000,000.00) in tax revenue per year.

“Right now our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous”, Mr Spicer said aboard Air Force One, adding that the tax will “easily pay for the wall”.

In the same vein, WhiteHouse Chief of Staff, Mr. Reince Priebus, said that the border tax is only one of several options being considered.

NEWSVERGE reports that the US President on Wednesday signed an executive order to create a wall on the US southern border with Mexico.

It is worthy of note that making Mexico pay for border wall was one of Mr. Trump’s key election campaign pledges.

But President Enrique Pena Nieto has always insisted that will not happen and on Thursday he pulled out of next week’s White House meeting.

According to opinions around Whitehouse, President Pena Nieto would have been perceived as “weak” if he had travelled to Washington DC for talks which would be regarded as accepting Mr Trump’s central claim – that Mexico will pay for the US border wall.

It is also believed that the latest proposal being floated by Mr. Donald Trump’s White House is a massive 20 percent border tax on Mexican imports.

As at today, Mexico exports about $300billion worth goods a year to the US, the impact of such a proposal would be felt across the country.

Similarly, funding a wall through a new tariff has been described as unacceptable to most ordinary Mexicans who view the wall as unnecessary, inhumane, expensive and ineffective.

Against the border wall order, the Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, warned that US consumers may wind up bearing the cost of the proposed tax.

“Any tariff we can levy they can levy. Huge barrier to econ growth”, he wrote online.