President Donald Trump explicitly linked his proposal to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to ongoing NAFTA negotiations, warning the country that the flow of illicit drugs and immigrants “must stop.”
Via Twitter, the president ripped the U.S.’s southern neighbor for doing “very little, if nothing” at stemming illegal immigration and narcotics from flowing across the border. He renewed a threat he made earlier this year, warning that successful trade pact renegotiation talks would hinge on Mexico making efforts to secure the border.
With increasing regularity, the president has gotten more aggressive in his rhetoric. On several occasions, he’s hinted at trying to force Mexico to pay for the proposed border wall, an idea that Mexican officials have emphatically rejected. Last year, the White House floated the idea of a border adjustment tax on Mexican goods, a proposal that met stiff resistance in Congress before being it was ultimately killed in tax reform talks.
Meanwhile, talks to renegotiate the trade pact between the U.S., Canada and Mexico have gotten increasingly contentious. In theory, a NAFTA termination letter would start the countdown for a 6-month process to abrogate the pact. However, some think Washington could use such a move to gain leverage over Canada and Mexico.
In January, Mexico threatened to leave the negotiations altogether if Trump triggered the process to withdraw from the pact.
–Reuters contributed to this article.
