As almost everyone is aware, and as Donald Trump himself has stated hundreds of times at this point, he has a first solution to the immigration problem at our southern border.
"We are going to build a wall. And we are going to have Mexico pay for it."
Now, deep breath first. This is really not about the need for the wall. In fact, I am going to stipulate, for argument's sake, almost all of what he has been saying, assuming or alluding to during the campaign, to wit:
1. The current border is porous as heck, and is even more porous because the incumbent president does not want to stop illegals from crossing into our country, even when they occasionally come over and murder innocent Americans. After all, they are likely to be overwhelming Democrat votes if and when they vote, legally or not.
2. The heroin epidemic, devastating people in states such as New Hampshire, is directly affected by the fact that drugs can be brought into this country across a border that is not enforced and barely patrolled.
3. There are plenty of good and decent people crossing the border seeking a better life, who would happily go through a legal path to becoming Americans, however long it would take. And mixed among them are drug dealers, gun-runners and low-lifes whom we would never admit, if we had the same choice as to who immigrated that every other country has.
4. Mexicans are no worse and no better, as a population, than anyone else -- including Americans whose families have been here for generations. This is not about ethnicity or race.
5. If I were to figure out who I'd like to have build that wall, Donald Trump would have been up there on my list even before he declared his candidacy. The man can build things. Last stipulation -- Donald Trump can certainly build that wall.
So we all should understand, and I certainly concur, that we need the wall. If you have a country, you have borders, and borders need to mean something. Got it.
Here's the thing, though. Donald Trump keeps on saying that "Mexico is going to pay for the wall", and that's the part I don't quite get. I mean, to me it would be nice if they paid for it, but not absolutely necessary. Just having a border secure enough to reduce the flow of illegals to a trickle, and virtually eliminate the flow of drugs across that border, well, that would be good.
I don't actually care who pays for it. What I have not gotten a handle on -- and this is one of those areas where Trump's lack of specificity challenges me -- is how the money flows from Mexico to the U.S. Government.
He has been asked -- oh, he certainly has been asked. But his answer, to me, wanders directly over to the trade deficit, which is a commercial figure. Trade deficits measure the dollars in goods and services sent from the people of the USA for those purchases to another country, vs. the pesos (in this case) in goods and services sent from that nation's people to suppliers in the USA. A trade deficit of $100 billion means that Americans bought $100 billion more in goods from Mexico than Mexicans bought from us.
Now, this simple equation I just gave you gets complicated really fast, in at least two particular ways. First, we're bigger than Mexico. We're also more prosperous. So it makes sense that we will normally have a trade deficit, presuming equal barrier levels to imports and exports between the two. Mexico's economy and people simply aren't large or prosperous enough to order as much from us as we do from them.
Second, there is the exhausting factor of currency exchange and valuation. If Mexico or any other country suddenly decides to devalue its currency against the U.S. dollar, then instantly it becomes cheaper for Americans to buy goods from Mexico than it was before, and if Mexican shoes, say, were less than American shoes before, now they're even more so. China does this strategically to boost its exports to the USA, and make our goods really hard to sell there. Mexico, same thing. Multiple countries do this.
I understand that trade deficit thing a bit, really I do. What I can't extrapolate from that is what Trump plans to do to move actual dollars from Mexico to the U.S. Government to reimburse us for the wall. Is he going to propose to devalue the U.S. dollar? Would that work? If so, how would he actually get the Government to get it hands on the amount for the wall?
Will he threaten Mexico with devaluation, or trying to change NAFTA, to extort them into paying for the wall on a "pay up or else" basis? Will he threaten them with some other economic sanction if they don't pay? Wouldn't you like to know how? I would, for two reasons -- first, I actually am curious to know and, second, his answer would give some insight into the way he thinks about economics on an international scale.
At this point, after Tuesday, it is perhaps more likely than not that Trump will get enough delegates to be nominated as the Republican candidate, or at least come so close that the convention will be pretty much forced to nominate him. Hillary Clinton is a very unconvincing speaker and a weak debater, but she surely knows enough to press Trump on how he will get Mexico to pay.
If he tries to answer with the same trade-deficit responses he has been giving, it will not play too well by then. I have a degree from M.I.T. and I want a wall built at the border, but I sure can't tell you how the money will come from Mexico to pay for it.
Donald Trump needs a better answer and he needs it pretty soon. So here is an offer. Mr. Trump, please drop me an email or give me a call. Explain to me how Mexico is going to pay. I will write you a simple, compelling speech you can give going forward, that will make sense to people. I will charge my normal, inexpensive consulting rate. It won't guarantee you the nomination or the election, but it will at least stop the nagging question.
Deal?
Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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