In an extreme bid to reduce illegal migration and drug-smuggling, President Donald Trump has decided that there’s a very good likelihood for action to be taken to US border to be shut this week.
If he were to go ahead with that, how would that affect the US?
After Canada and China, Mexico is the United States is the third largest trading partner. Avocado shortages, widely consumed in the United States would be one part of it.
Across the border, nearly $1.7 billion of goods and services flow across. Including over 500,000 legal workers, students, tourists, and shoppers.
A nonresident senior fellow said at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, “Most of us in the trade business thought terminating Nafta would be quite a body blow, but what Trump is talking about now, would be catastrophic. It’s just absurd”.
Questions have been raised as to the rights the president – Donald Trump – has to close the border, and an associate professor at George Washington Political Management in Washington DC says, “The President has wide latitude to control the flow of people and goods coming into the US”.
A difficulty Donald Trump may face is with the vow that he would close the border “for a long time”. That could trigger multiple legal challenges on behalf of people and interests that would be affected by building that wall.
In 2018 alone, The United States exported $265 billion across the border and imported a whooping $349.6 billion. Hence, one of the president’s reasons for shutting the border because according to him, that “saves America money”.
Closing the U.S border would also inflict severe economic harm on American families, workers, farmers, and manufacturers across the United States,” said Neil Bradley – the chief policy officer and chamber’s executive vice president.