It’s hard to single out any particular Donald Trump idea for the Stupidest Of All. There are just way, way too many contenders. But surely the idea that Mexico would pay for a border wall with the United States was always near the top of the charts. Mexico would get no benefit from such a wall, and the idea that a nation whose economy is about one-tenth that of the United States would do us a solid by turning a substantial part of their national budget into a global eyesore is simply beyond ridiculous.
It didn’t take Donald Trump long to admit it was ridiculous. In 2017 he shut down the government over demands that the American taxpayer pay for his wall. In 2018, he’s done it again, claiming that he would be “proud” to take the blame for a shutdown if he “doesn’t get what he wants.” And what he wants is a wall.
But after his public ass-kicking by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Trump had a surprise once they were behind closed doors—he returned to his old promise that Mexico would pay for the wall. Only … Trump made that promise even as he was demanding that the US fork out $5 billion for the same wall. How did Trump resolve this circular argument? On Thursday, he finally made it clear.
That’s right. Trump’s NAFTA version 1.01 is so much better than the old NAFTA, that we can build the wall out of the money we save. And by “we” Trump means American consumers—who are very definitely on the hook for the funds to build his wall.
Think of it as a car, plus a monkey. Donald Trump demands that Americans pay for his monkey. Americans, not even Republicans in the House, want to do that. But now Trump is saying we’re getting a break on the price of our new car … so he’s going to take those dollars to buy his monkey. So it’s like getting the monkey for free! Except that we paid for it.
Trump’s wall logic is similar to that he’s recently used in making claims that America is “getting rich again” from funds collected by tariffs. Those tariffs are paid by U.S. companies and U.S. consumers. They are a tax, not on China or any other nation. They’re a tax on Americans. If all of Trump’s negotiating “wins” seem to come at the expense of Americans, it’s because they do.