Trump to Mexico: Stop Ripping Us Off | Victor Davis Hanson

The Daily Signal Podcast

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the first time, 60% of Americans have an “unfavorable” view of Mexico, according to a Pew Research Poll. How do you view Mexico? America’s southern neighbor has a $175 billion trade surplus with the United States, the second-largest surplus of any country. Last year, over $62 billion in remittances were sent from the U.S. to Mexico, according to BBVA Research. Mexico is aware that it has been taking advantage of the United States, with impunity, for years. President Donald Trump knows that America cannot sustain the current status quo much longer, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “Mr. Obrador, the former president, said it was a beautiful thing that 40 million people—Mexicans—had come in illegally to the United States. Twelve million or more came in during Joe Biden's tenure. That was all done with the contrivance of Mexico. “…Mexico looked at that open border as a win-win-win-win situation… “Sixty-three billion dollars come to Mexico and that money comes largely from illegal aliens. But more importantly, it comes from people receiving state, local, and federal subsidies. So, you, the taxpayer—in terms of health subsidies, education subsidies, housing, food subsidies—are freeing up cash to send $63 billion back to Mexico. “So, if President Sheinbaum was wise, she would negotiate with Donald Trump, get that trade surplus from $175 billion down to $30 or $40 billion, stop all of the fentanyl, help secure the border, look at the remittances, allow us to put a tax on 10% or 15%, and I think we would have cordial relations again.” The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:29.8	Now I want to turn the emphasis to Mexico. Donald Trump has threatened all sorts of trade
0:35.4	sanctions on Mexico at 25% tar off. But why is he doing this?
0:40.1	And I think the answer is there's four things that Mexico knows it has been doing to us with impunity,
0:46.3	especially under Joe Biden, that are not sustainable. Remember, Mexico looked at that open border
0:51.3	is a win, win, win, win situation.
0:55.0	Donald Trump, in this case, has far more cause to be angry with Mexico than he does with Canada.
1:01.0	But what we are witnessing is a complete reexamination of the entire North American paradigm of three once close nations.
1:25.1	Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.
1:29.6	Last time I talked about our North American problems with Canada,
1:35.9	now I want to turn the emphasis to Mexico. Donald Trump has threatened all sorts of trade sanctions on Mexico at 25 percent tar off. But why is he doing this? And I think the answer is
1:42.6	there's four things that Mexico knows it has been doing
1:45.7	to us with impunity, especially under Joe Biden, that are not sustainable. The first, it used to run
1:53.5	under NAFTA, $10 to $20 billion trade surplus. Then it went to $40, then it went to $50, and then
2:00.6	during Donald Trump's first term,
2:02.1	we renegotiated. It kind of stayed static. Now it's over 175 billion. But get this,
2:08.9	it's mostly due to China evading tariffs on China by sending raw product materials to Mexico,
2:21.6	computers, phones, appliances to be assembled by Mexicans and then sent under free trade agreements with us to the benefit of Mexico and China.
	...

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