Donald Trump is not progressing well on his plan to close the Mexico-US border by building a wall. Now the US president has announced a new punitive action. He threatened the southern neighboring country with the imposition of car duties.
The Mexican government must stop both migrants who wanted to go to the US and drugs that would be smuggled into the United States. Trump set the country a deadline of one year. If Mexico has not taken appropriate action by then, "then we will pay their cars customs duties," he said. "If that does not work, we'll close the line."
Trump added, "I'll do that, I do not play games." He had initially threatened to close the border earlier this week if the Mexican government did not significantly increase its crackdown on illegal immigrants who wanted to cross the country to the United States. On Tuesday, he called on the US Congress to immediately reform the migration laws and threatened to close the border again.
The 3,200-kilometer border between the US and Mexico is one of the busiest in the world. Closure would have serious economic consequences for both countries. Trump had admitted on Tuesday that a border closure would have "a negative impact on the economy". But he also said: "Security is more important to me than trade." In February Trump had declared a national emergency on the border, where he wants to build a controversial wall.
Mexico's Economy Minister Graciela Márquez Colín urged Trump not to mix migration and trade policies. The Mexican government said it was "very important" to separate migration and trade issues. "The United States sometimes mixes these issues," she said in Mexico City.
Mexico and the US should talk about new tariffs as "two trading partners" who are in the process of modernizing a trade agreement, the Minister added with regard to the new edition of the North American Free Trade Agreement Nafta.