Trump Threatens to Double Tariffs on Mexico Unless It Stops Migrant Caravans: ‘There Will Be No Leniency!’
President Donald Trump threatened Thursday to “immediately” double tariffs on Mexico unless its government stops migrant caravans moving north toward the U.S. border, and he blamed Republicans’ midterm losses for the new wave.
“Here we go again!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, Fox News reported. “With the perceived loss by the Republicans in the Midterms – I WAS NOT ON THE BALLOT- the INVASION of our Country is taking place again.”
“Huge CARAVANS are forming and beginning their illegal march through Mexico,” he continued. “MEXICO MUST STOP THEM, NOW, and if they do not do so, the Tariffs on Mexico will be IMMEDIATELY DOUBLED,” the New York Post reported.
Trump said Mexico, Texas officials, the Border Patrol and ICE “HAVE BEEN SO INFORMED,” singling out “THE VERY LIBERAL NEW GOVERNOR OF TEXAS.” That was a jab at Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, who unseated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last week, Anadolu Agency noted. “There will be no leniency!” the president wrote.
A Caravan Inspired by the Midterms
The group, an estimated 1,500 people mostly from Central America, set off Tuesday from Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala, according to Fox News. Some migrants have said openly that Democrats’ wins gave them hope.
Cesar Sandoval, a 47-year-old Nicaraguan, said he hoped for “another chance” to enter the U.S. “We hope they remember that the ones who gave them the vote so they could make it to the Senate and Congress were the sons of Hispanics, the sons of Latinos,” he said, the Post reported.
It is the third caravan to try to cross Mexico since September. Mexican authorities broke up the first two and gave their members temporary permits to stay, according to the Post.
White House border czar Tom Homan called the new caravans “the Biden effect” on Fox News’ “America Reports.” He said Congress and Texas may be “more blue,” but the White House is still “bright red,” and migrants who reach the border will be turned back or prosecuted rather than released, Daily News Cycle reported.
Homan also urged Mexico to put troops on its borders, as it did in 2019 after Trump threatened tariffs during his first term, the outlet said.
Questions About Legal Authority
Trump gave Mexico no deadline, Bloomberg reported. The outlet said it was not immediately clear what legal authority he has to double the levies after a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that limited his tariff powers.
The administration already charges 25% national security tariffs on Mexican-made cars and 50% on steel and aluminum from Mexico, the Post noted. Mexico’s peso slipped to a session low after the post, Quartz reported.
The threat also lands as Democrats prepare to take over more state law enforcement posts. Texas Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson, a Democrat, could drop the state’s defense of SB4, the law that lets Texas arrest and prosecute illegal border crossers, Fox News reported.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier pushed back on any loosening. “I don’t think we can entertain amnesty in a conversation,” he said on “The Will Cain Show,” according to Fox News. “We have to be a country focused on rule of law.”
The Mexican government had not issued an immediate response to Trump’s threat, Anadolu Agency reported.
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