Nothing succeeds like success, the old saying goes. That is unless you’re Donald J. Trump. All we heard from the mainstream media in the run-up to the threatened tariffs against Mexico was how devastating it would be for the American consumer. Talking points filtered through the press that avocados would go through the roof because of the proposed tariffs. I did a spot check of avocado prices around the country. Most were selling for 88 cents, a near all-time low. The worst the first wave of tariffs would’ve done would have been to drive the price up to 92 cents an avocado. That’s a far cry from the crisis they were trying to manufacture.
Then they pivoted to car prices. Nothing had changed on that front either. Then it was all about how Mexico was our best trading partner and how dare we treat them this way. Mexico may be an important trading partner, but they are a corruptocracy. Some refer to them as a narco-state. Then comes the reality. Mexico’s Finance and Tax Secretariat (SHCP) has been tracking suspicious transactions that lead back to drug cartel-linked human smuggling. In other words, many of the caravans heading to the United States have been linked to drug cartels.
Here’s how this works. They fund thousands of migrants to swarm the border at once in an effort to overwhelm U.S. Border Patrol. While our border watchers are processing the onslaught of asylum-seekers the drug cartels are traipsing across the border with large quantities of drugs. President Trump was well aware of what was going on.
Thwarted by lawsuits from the likes of the ACLU and aided by open-borders judges the Trump administration had run out of options to stop the illegal invasion. President Trump turned to the only weapon left in his arsenal: Tariffs. And they worked.
Mexico’s negotiators hopped a plane to Washington and before we knew it we had a deal whereby Mexico would send their national guard to their southern border to stop the flow of migrants coming up from Guatemala. They also agreed to keep asylum-seekers in their country until they could be processed in ours, something the courts had stopped Trump from doing unilaterally.
Almost as soon as the president had tweeted the victorious results of the agreement the New York Times was out with a story about how there was nothing new here. What was new and groundbreaking was Trump had managed to get the Mexicans to finally agree to living up to their responsibilities by threatening to hit them in the wallet. By the way, the tariffs are suspended, not canceled. If Mexico doesn’t live up to its end of the bargain then the tariffs go forward.
The New York Times editorialized in their news account by writing that Trump “was driven in part by his obsession with stopping what he falsely calls an invasion of the country.” Although some quarters of the mainstream media remain in denial, this is truly an invasion. Over a million migrants will attempt to enter our country this year. If that’s not an invasion I don’t know what is.
Trump continues to confound his critics on both sides of the aisle. Some Republicans, who place profits ahead of principles, had bashed the president for his tariff threat. Now it looks nothing short of genius.
Trump joked on the campaign trail that we’d get so sick of winning. I had to laugh to myself when I read his tweet announcing the Mexican deal. So far I’m not even close to being sick.
Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show on SuperTalk 99.7WTN in Nashville. He's also co-host of The PodGOATs podcast.
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