On Tuesday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” the host discusses President Donald Trump’s successful trade tactics that brought the Mexican government to agree to help with immigration.
President Trump just secured a very good deal with Mexico over immigration and walking back the threat of tariffs. This has been in the news for three weeks, non-stop. The Trump trade war, it’s going to destroy the whole world everything’s going to hell in a handbasket. So on Friday, President Trump secures the deal with Mexico. I go to try to figure out the specifics of this deal. None of the mainstream media articles actually cover the specifics. I could not find the text of this deal anywhere, eventually, I just had to go to the White House website to read the joint statement from the United States and Mexico.
What were the headlines over this deal? Washington Post, “The Dubious Art of Trump’s Deal with Mexico.” It’s “dubious.” USA Today, “Donald Trump claims there is more to migrant deal with Mexico than he announced but offers no specifics.” What did he announce? You haven’t told me. CNN, “Trump fights back against skeptics of his new Mexico deal.” Against the “skeptics”: who are the skeptics? CNN, that’s who. But that’s the story. It’s not that President Trump secures a good deal, and not what is in the actual deal. No, it’s fighting back against the skeptics, by which they mean, of course, CNN.
What actually happened? President Trump has been threatening tariffs on Mexico if Mexico does not help us to stop illegal immigration into the United States. You have to remember, if you’re going across the southern border into America you’ve got to cross into Mexico first. The vast majority of these illegal aliens coming into America are not Mexicans. They come from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, other places in Central and South America. Then they cross into Mexico, and then they come to America. President Trump said, listen Mexico, you’ve got to put some security along your southern border and stop this before it becomes a problem for us. Mexico hasn’t done it because it’s mostly a failed state and because Mexico has a huge economic incentive to continue to allow illegal immigration.
When these illegal aliens are pouring through Mexico’s southern border on their way into America this brings a lot of money to Mexico’s economy. Most of that money is going to the cartels, but then those cartels are spending all of that money within Mexico, in Mexico’s economy. We’re talking about over a billion dollars at least. Mexico has no normal economic incentive to stop illegal immigration and they have a lot of incentives to keep it going.
President Trump threatens tariffs, and everyone said this wasn’t going to work. “Oh no, the tariffs are going to hurt the American economy. Nobody takes Trump seriously. He doesn’t really mean it.” Well, President Trump has slapped tariffs on our foes and on our allies. So he said, listen I’m not joking about this, I will do it. It goes down to the final hour when they could be negotiating this deal and what happens?
Mexico agrees to beef up its immigration protection. That’s what happened. We were told the tariffs are going to destroy the economy; he’s not really going to get any concessions because of the tariffs; the tariffs aren’t even going to work. And all of those critics were proven totally wrong and President Trump’s strategy totally worked. This is a major win. I mean this is a basically unqualified win for Trump and an unqualified loss for his critics who said that tariffs weren’t going to work.