Reports are Trump wants a 20% tax on Mexican imports. American gets just under 70% of it’s fresh produce from Mexico. And if Mexico retaliates, we send billions of dollars worth of product to Mexico. Much of it from our farms. In 2014, Texas exported nearly $103 billion worth of merchandise to Mexico. Mexico is our 3rd largest trade partner.
So Bannon/Trump and their idiot supporters are giving us all a 20% rise in food prices to pay for a medieval method of border security called a “wall” while Mexicans will still be able to enter by using AIRPLANES to get here and then overstaying their visas. And if Mexico retaliates, our businesses will feel the pinch in short order.
Navy Vet Terp posted below in comments that:
Any attempt to impose this 20% tariff on Mexico prior to completion of U.S. withdrawal will cause Mexico to file a complaint with the WTO, which will then order Trump comply with NAFTA, and, upon refusal, direct international sanctions against the United States.
NAFTA Article 2205: Withdrawal
A Party may withdraw from this Agreement six months after it provides written notice of withdrawal to the other Parties. If a Party withdraws, the Agreement shall remain in force for the remaining Parties.
AND NOW THEY BACKPEDAL AND SAY THIS WAS JUST ONE IDEA ON HOW TO PAY FOR THE WALL> NOT ***THE*** IDEA.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that Mexico by far is the most important supplier of fresh produce to the U.S., accounting for 69% of U.S. fresh vegetable import value and 37% of U.S. fresh fruit import value in 2012.
U.S. imports of Mexican fresh fruit totaled $2.86 billion in 2012, with the import value increasing by an average of about 20% per year from 1999 to 2012. By comparison, the value of U.S. imports of Chilean fruit totaled $1.22 billion in 2012, up an average of 10% per year over the same period.
www.thepacker.com/...
In 2014, Texas exported nearly $103 billion worth of merchandise to Mexico. California, Michigan, and Illinois are the next largest U.S. state exporters to Mexico, although far behind Texas. For a complete list of export amounts by state, download the Excel file above.
businessresearcher.sagepub.com/...
U.S. exports of agricultural products to Mexico totaled $18.1 billion in 2013, the 3rd largest U.S. Ag export market. Leading categories include: corn ($1.8 billion), soybeans ($1.5 billion), dairy products ($1.4 billion), pork and pork products ($1.2 billion), and poultry meat (excluding eggs) ($1.2 billion).
Trade: In 1993, before NAFTA took effect (which it did in January 1994), Mexico bought $41 billion in goods and services from the U.S. and sold $39 Billion worth to the United States. Total: $80 billion. In the first year of NAFTA, the $80 billion increased to $99 billion, a 25 percent increase.
Ten years after NAFTA started, total trade between the U.S. and Mexico was $145 billion — an increase of 55 percent. In 2003, almost twenty years after NAFTA began, total trade with Mexico was $506 billion — half a trillion dollars — which is 632 percent more than 1994.
In 2014, by contrast, the United States exported $123 billion in goods to China and imported $466 billion from China. That's a minus $343 billion imbalance in trade. In 2014, the U.S. exported $49 billion of goods to Germany and imported $123 billion for an imbalance of minus $73 billion (lots of Mercedes and BMWs).
Here is something that Mr. Trump apparently does not know: U.S.-Mexico trade is unique in the world; there is a "production sharing" program between Mexico and the United States in which, according to the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, "A full 40 [percent] of the content of U.S. imports from Mexico is actually produced in the United States. ... This means that forty cents of every dollar spent on imports from Mexico comes back to the United States, a quantity ten times greater that the four cents returning for each dollar paid on Chinese imports."
thehill.com/...