The New York Times reports Trump Vows to Close Border, Even if It Hurts the Economy.
President Trump acknowledged Tuesday that closing the southern border with Mexico could damage the United States economy, but said protecting America’s security was more important than trade.
In remarks from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump reiterated his threat to shut the border if Mexico, America’s third largest trading partner, cannot restrict a flow of asylum seekers trying to cross into the United States. But the president’s economic team, concerned about the damage from such a move, said it was looking for ways to limit the fallout if Mr. Trump does do so.
“Sure, it’s going to have a negative impact on the economy,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “but security is most important.”
“Security is more important to me than trade,” he said.
Republican lawmakers, economists and business groups largely disagree with that assessment and warned this week that closing the border could cripple the flow of goods and workers and devastate American automakers and farmers, as well as other industries that depend on Mexico for sales and goods.
Economic Stupidity
It’s not often I agree with the collective wisdom of economists, but this is one of those times.
I am aware of companies holding war room scenarios on how to circumvent traffic lines at border crossing choke points. Food, auto parts, medical supplies are among the impacts.
Instant Recession
A few days ago when these threats first emerged, I commented Trump Threatens to Close Entire Mexican Border: Instant Recession If Carried Out.
I am not the only one to mention the R-word. Here are some snips from the article above.
“Closing down the border would have a potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said in an interview. “I would hope that we would not be doing that sort of thing.”
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that “a full shutdown of the U.S.-Mexican border of more than several weeks would be the fodder for recessions in both Mexico and the U.S.”
Severe and Sudden Impact
The impact will be so severe and sudden, if Trump is foolish enough to try this, he will be forced to quickly drop it.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Let me get this right. The President is “Prepared to Hurt the Economy”.
I know, right!
But that’s what he said:
“Sure, it’s going to have a negative impact on the economy,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “but security is most important.”
Without large scale immigration America will be a dying nation in 50 years like Japan and Italy. We need more people, but some of us want them to be the right color.
Steve King is at least honest about his bigotry – he knows we need more babies, but thinks that “other people’s babies” will not maintain “our civilization”.
We have been though this story time and time again in this country (the tale of the right and wrong immigrant). In previous times it has been poor Scots who were the wrong type of immigrant, many chased out by the Highland Clearances followed by the Highland Potato Famine.
Then it was the turn of the Irish. The Italians were seen as a major source of disruption to civilization – in 1891 eleven Italians were lynched in New Orleans and this continued into the 1920’s.
Central Americans are just the latest “wrong” immigrants.
But if we’d built a wall across the Atlantic and stopped all the Italians then there would be no pizza, no Joe DiMaggio, and if the native Americans had a Trump as their leader in 1492, no Christopher Columbus. (Yes, I know).
😉
What is your theory that population needs growing indefinitely? In 1980, the population size is 226.5m. In 2018 we have 372.2m. At this rate of growth, we will be at 611.6m in 2056 and pass 1b before 2090.
At some point more people isnt going to solve the problems of forgotten citizens.
How do you place a value on the lost and ruined lives caused by human and drug trafficking, especially when so many children are involved in the sex trade. It’s time to bite the bullet and shut down the easy pathway for these sick f*cks.
Those who are afraid scary hobgoblins will rape their children, should arm themselves. Those who are afraid the hobgoblins will rape other people’s children, should help see to it that the parents of those children get to arm themselves. At absolutely no point, should anyone support some government arming itself.
Trucks and trade OPEN, People traffic CLOSED
So what is your solution to the continuous inflow of illegals? We have ignored the problem long enough and no one has an idea how many of them are in the country. We can’t even ask the question in the upcoming census! Name me a developed country that allows an unrestricted inflow of unvetted migrants.
Trying to cope with the immigrant invasion is disrupting commercial traffic:
New York Times: “America’s third largest trading partner, cannot restrict a flow of asylum seekers trying to cross into the United States.”
The NYT is propaganda. They are not seeking asylum and the NYT knows that. Their intent is to enter the U.S. illegally by falsely claiming asylum.
If not stopped, this problem will get worse and worse.
RonJ one aspect is important here, the asylum seekers are not Mexican, but from central America…where things are really really bad (you know bad hombres).
The important aspect is that the people in these caravans are not asylum seekers, as they are entering Mexico by their southern border, heading to the U.S. as their destination. Mexico gives asylum.
Fear is required to be a modern conservative. If you aren’t afraid to go outside unarmed, you just don’t fit in anymore. When trump says “booga booga”, a True conservative must respond with “Aieeeeeeeeeee!”
A lot of y’all just aren’t holding up your end of the deal.
Not just a modern conservative. Brain studies conclude:
As I have mentioned previously I live on the border in West Texas and there are no locks on my house and the key is in the ignition of my truck parked in the driveway. There is almost no crime to speak of here and yes, we do see illegals sometimes walking along the road or camped in my pastures. The only crisis is the fear that Trump stirs up in his old white cult members.
The threat isn’t violence. The threat is overwhelming our schools and welfare. I live in a very good school district. One of the best in the country. And it’s a sanctuary county. The population of spanish speaking students is exploding. Our local high school went from about 10% hispanic in 1990 to about 60% now. Academics have suffered immensely. If you’re lucky enough to avoid the hispanics by staying in honors programs, you’ll be OK, but for everyone else, learning is impossible. The teachers spend all their time trying to keep the students under control. Not teaching.
“overwhelming our schools and welfare.”
You don’t have a school. Neither do I. Hence “we” don’t.
And you shouldn’t have any welfare. Neither should anyone else. Ditto government.
I live in “happy valley” – a very rich enclave of upper middle class protected liberals in a coastal state. There are two local elementary schools, both equidistant from “happy valley”. There is a defined catchment area for each, but it is fluid and you can request a school if you really want to.
Over the last 20 years the apartment complexes that are in the catchment area for School 1 have become significantly more populated by immigrants, significantly raising the non-English speaking kids in School 1.
This caused a lot of hand wringing in the liberal circles – an interesting experiment started. A percentage of the parents opted for the all-white School 2, but most kept their kids going to the more diverse School 1.
Every year the kids from the whole school district get tested on a standard test, and the top 1% get some special classes. School 2 holds its own with the other 5-6 elementary schools, averaging 1-2 per grade, however School 1 is the district standout with 2-3, and in one of my kid’s grades 4 (including my son).
Yes, my kids share a classroom with kids who are trying to learn English, but my wife used to go in as a parent helper and she would see kids go from not being able to keep up to excelling over the course of a year.
She also said that the immigrant kids were better behaved because their parents were a lot more strict with them than the “happy valley” helicopter parents were. The immigrant parents didn’t blame the teachers, they told their kids to buckle down. It was like when I was a kid – if any of my teachers gave me a note to bring home I knew I was in for the high jump from my parents.
It depends on where the immigrants came from. In Montgomery County Maryland schools (One of the largest school districts in the country) are given report cards and there’s a near exact correlation between the grade a school receives and the pct of students who are white/asian. The best way for a school to get a good grade is to increase enrollment of white and or asian students.
I’ve heard from my kids, their friends and teachers that the only way to get a good education is to avoid the ghetto classes. The ones were the majority of students are hispanic or black because the students are very disruptive.
How do you know Trump is trolling America – watch the pattern:
If he actually did shot down government, for real as an adult would have done it, that would not be a dumb idea. Hence, of course Trump didn’t do that.
Trump tried the Government shutdown, and that blew up in his face.
Now he is trying his next “Reality TV Cliffhanger” threat to get everybody’s attention.
This isn’t about security. It isn’t about immigrants. There are far better ways to address both of these issues.
It is all about Trump wanting to be the center of attention. He floats one dumb idea after another until the press [and Mish] jump up and down frantically about one of them, then he sticks to it, delighted that everybody is hanging on his every word again.
Will he or won’t he? Does he understand the consequences? Chirons and worried looking CNN anchors. Fox pundits mouthing off supporting nonsense. Economists weighing in. MAGA-heads wetting their diapers about the “invasion” and “democrats refus[ing] to do anything to fix the immigration problem”
This is manna for a sad old man.
And it sells pixels. More and more pixels. And TV time. A sad old man and an industry that can’t stop giving the chattering classes their fix. That is the real threat to America.
When you live in a country where every little thing that is allowed to happen, has to be decided on by a gigantic, totalitarian government first; childish Court intrigue and vapid tantrums suddenly take on great importance for the chained and indentured classes.
“When you live in a country where every little thing that is allowed to happen, has to be decided on by a gigantic, totalitarian government”
We live in very different countries.
Yes, the geographical boundaries are the same. The people and places are the same, but, having lived for many years in Africa, Europe and Canada, my opinion is that the U.S. Government is the most free, liberal, libertarian, right wing governing entity I’ve been subject to by a country mile.
I wish you loved your U.S.A. as much as I love mine – this isn’t meant to be a patriotic slam, but I just think it is a shame that there are so many people angry about what we have here when it is so much better than many other places.
Don’t get me wrong, there are things I’d like to see improved – I think that many people risking going bankrupt if their kid gets ill can be fixed; and that kids shouldn’t have to learn how to behave if a random overarmed angry man wanders into their school and starts using them as target practice.
But for the most part I think we are lucky to be Americans.
That’s what those blessed enough to be granted pawn status in the Bolivarian Revolution were told to believe as well: How lucky aren’t you; who have a Dear Leader who promises to throw you bread crumbs, while saying mean things about all your scary neighbors who aren’t members of the party….
Just remember to cheer when Dear Leader disarms everyone. Everyone aside from the security details assigned to protect him and his social circle, of course. They never need to be disarmed. Because Dear Leader needs guns to protect his children. As for your children, meh!
Pretty sad what a century and a half of pervasive, publicly funded progressive indoctrination, has managed to do to a country of once somewhat free people…
I prefer to think that free trade IS security between nations, but that is just Milton Friedman and I apparently.
The mass of people coming up from Central America are desperately poor, so who is providing the support($$) for their trek and why? Any info anyone?
Noone.
In the 21st century, if you take away taxes, mandates, fines, fees bans, regulations and leeches sucking at the teat of totalitarian government; getting by is cheap and simple enough that even most third worlders can do it, without much trouble.
It’s not as if anyone “provided support” for the Wagon trains moving West back when the US was civilized, either. And that was in an era when food and shelter was infinitely more expensive than it is today.
Finally. Expect many to join the ranks of the unemployed if the border closes for even a couple of weeks.
Trump had an offer from the Democrats for over $20 billion for the wall. He turned it down.
They offered him $25 billion for a wall if he agreed to amnesty. He wouldn’t. Then a year later he was offering amnesty for $5 billion and the democrats told him no.
Trump won’t really pursue this, it would create too much of a red team rift. The ones in border states are already stumbling over each other to criticize any closing.
Amusing political potential aside, this is what the cool politicians today would call a nothingburger.
The democrats refuse to do anything to fix the immigration problem just because they want to make trouble for Trump. Central and South Americans got the message that anyone claiming sanctuary or with a kid will be allowed in now, and the current rate is 100,000 per month and increasing. It is an invasion and the democrats welcome it.
Well, if Trump wants to take a stand on the border this is the year to do it. Border shut down would likely cause big stock sell off. Central banks will panic and maybe we see a repeat of 1998. Stocks go into 2020 with a bubble top. Republicans sweep the elections. In the meantime, might be wise to move far away from the big cities 😉