The Tariff Thing

Mexico has a new president and apparently, she is not f_cking around when it comes to tariffs and Donald Trump. See this AP story:

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Tuesday that Mexico could retaliate with tariffs of its own, after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% import duties on Mexican goods if the country doesn’t stop the flow of drugs and migrants across the border.

Sheinbaum said she was willing to engage in talks on the issues, but said drugs were a U.S. problem.

“One tariff would be followed by another in response, and so on until we put at risk common businesses,” Sheinbaum said, referring to U.S. automakers that have plants on both sides of the border.

She said Tuesday that Mexico had done a lot to stem the flow of migrants, noting “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border.”

She also said Mexico had worked to stem the flow of drugs like the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, despite an influx of weapons smuggled in from the United States. She said the flow of drugs “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society.”

Sheinbaum also criticized U.S. spending on weapons, saying the money should instead be spent regionally to address the problem of migration. “If a percentage of what the United States spends on war were dedicated to peace and development, that would address the underlying causes of migration,” she said.

Sheinbaum’s bristly response suggests that Trump faces a much different Mexican president than he did in his first term.

Back in late 2018, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was a charismatic, old-school politician who developed a chummy relationship with Trump. The two were eventually able to strike a bargain in which Mexico helped keep migrants away from the border — and received other countries’ deported migrants — and Trump backed down on the threats.

But Sheinbaum, who took office Oct. 1, is a stern leftist ideologue trained in radical student protest movements, and appears less willing to pacify or mollify Trump.

Here is the entire read: Mexico suggests it would impose its own tariffs to retaliate against any Trump tariffs | AP News.

The featured photo is about how the two countries should work together. I don’t blame Mexico’s president for playing hardball. She is not going to sit back and allow her country to get pushed around. It looks like she is making it clear that she will not be rolled over.

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Here is a headline and sub-headline on the Texas Monthly website:

State Republicans Who Support Trump Won’t Comment on the Huge Economic Disruptions That Mass Deportations Would Entail

Texas Monthly reached out to more than a hundred GOP officeholders to see how, exactly, Trump’s proposal should be carried out in our state. Only two of them responded.

Only two GOP elected officials responded.

Here is the Texas Monthly read: Texas GOP Officials Won’t Say How Trump Should Do Mass Deportations.

It looks like reality is taking shape.

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Nothing to report on the Alex Bregman front.