The Shutdown, According to Trump – The New York Times

Mexico paying for the wall?

The president said that the new trade deal with Mexico and Canada will yield billions of dollars for this country. “That is paying for the wall,” he said. “Many, many times over. In fact, what we save on the U.S.M.C.A., the new trade deal we have with Mexico and Canada, what we save on that just with Mexico will pay for the wall many times over, just in a period of a year, two years and three years. So I view that as absolutely Mexico is paying for the wall.”

(Congress has yet to ratify the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and it does not compel Mexico to pay for the wall. Whatever federal revenue it generates would come from American taxpayers, not Mexico.)

And, Mr. Trump said, why shouldn’t Mexico pay for the wall through trade, given that “we are losing close to $100 billion a year on trade with Mexico.” (The United States had a $69 billion trade deficit with Mexico in 2017.)

Mr. Trump also took another shot at the North American Free Trade Agreement that the new trade deal seeks to replace, arguing that “we lost millions of jobs” through Nafta. (The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimated that the United States lost 850,000 jobs because of Nafta. The Times was unable to find any credible estimate that supported Mr. Trump’s “millions” figure.)

China paying tariffs?

Asked about ongoing trade talks with Beijing, Mr. Trump reported that “China is paying us tremendous tariffs.” (The United States does not send China a bill for the cost of tariffs, which are often passed on to American importers or consumers.)

China, by the way, “is the biggest beneficiary of Apple,” so Mr. Trump is not concerned that the company reduced its revenue forecast this week, sending stocks tumbling. Nonetheless, Mr. Trump said Apple is “investing $350 billion because of what we did with taxes and the incentives that we created in the United States.” (Apple was already on track to spend $275 billion in the United States over the next five years. After a $38 billion tax payment, the company’s investment would be roughly $37 billion.)

Terrorists stopped at the border

After suggesting that terrorists were pouring into the country over wall-less portions of the border, Mr. Trump turned to Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, for specifics. She said there were 3,000 such terrorists “that we know about,” but said she could not divulge other information because it was classified.