WASHINGTON -- A top White House official said Sunday that President Donald Trump is "deadly serious" about imposing tariffs on imports from Mexico starting next week.
The comment by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, came as officials from both the U.S. and Mexico prepared for meetings this week about the tariffs, which Trump says will pressure Mexico to block Central American migrants from crossing the border into the U.S.
Graciela Marquez, Mexico's economy minister, said Sunday that she plans to meet U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Washington today. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard is then expected to meet with his U.S. counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and other officials on Wednesday.
The president said last week that he will impose a 5% tariff on Mexican goods on June 10. Trump said the import tax will increase by 5 percentage points every month through October, topping out at 25%.
Trump -- who will be in the U.K. during those negotiations -- downplayed the talks, tweeting Sundaythat Mexico could solve the border situation "in one day if they so desired."
"Mexico is sending a big delegation to talk about the Border," the president tweeted. "Problem is, they've been 'talking' for 25 years. We want action, not talk."
Mulvaney, who is also the director of the Office of Management and Budget, acknowledged on Sunday that the call for action does not include any specific benchmarks to assess whether Mexico is doing enough to stem the flow of migrants.
"We intentionally left the declaration sort of ad hoc," Mulvaney said on Fox News Sunday. "So, there's no specific target, there's no specific percentage, but things have to get better. They have to get dramatically better and they have to get better quickly."
He said the idea is to work with the Mexican government "to make sure that things did get better."
Mulvaney said on NBC's Meet the Press that the catalyst for Trump's decision was the crossing of 1,036 migrants into the United States in a single incident.
Customs and Border Protection called the early Wednesday breach near El Paso, Texas, the largest single detention of migrants to date. The group included 934 family members, 63 unaccompanied minors and 39 single adults, the agency said.
"A group of one thousand people stormed the border...," Mulvaney said Sunday. "We're facing things at the border we've never experienced before."
The time stamp on a surveillance video of the crossing is 3:20 a.m. Wednesday. Trump announced the tariffs a little more than 24 hours later.
Mulvaney said Mexico could take various steps to decrease the record numbers of migrants at the border, suggesting that it crack down on domestic terrorist organizations and become a safe place for migrants seeking to apply for asylum.
Noting that most migrants are from Guatemala and El Salvador, Mulvaney also said the Mexican government could seal its southern border with Guatemala, which he said was a quarter of the length of Mexico's northern border with the United States.
Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of homeland security, endorsed the idea that Mexico should reinforce that border.
"These crossings into Mexico are happening at a 150-mile stretch of their southern border," he said on CNN's State of the Union. "This is a controllable area."
Asked on Meet the Press why the administration was putting the responsibility on the Mexican government, Mulvaney replied, "Since you need 60 votes in the Senate, you need Democratic help. They won't help us. I know that sounds outrageous. Our own government, our own Congress ... they're on vacation this week. They left town. Our own government is not helping us fix this circumstance."
TRUMP TWEETS
On Fox News Sunday, Mulvaney was asked why a nation would make a trade deal with the U.S. if Trump would raise tariffs because of an unrelated issue.
"We've been very specific from the minute that this proclamation went out that this was an immigration matter," Mulvaney said. "It's not a trade matter. ... The two are separate."
His comments came after Trump's Saturday tweets arguing that the tariffs would boost job creation as Mexican companies move to the U.S. to avoid paying levies "once the Tariff reaches the higher levels."
"They took many of our companies & jobs, the foolish Pols let it happen, and now they will come back," Trump said.
The president also tweeted that the U.S. has been the "Piggy Bank" for other countries for years. "We are no longer the 'fools' of the past!" he said.
Trump contended that "Mexico is an 'abuser' of the United States, taking but never giving" for decades -- and that it could be fixed if Democrats voted with Republicans to close immigration "loopholes."
"Either they stop the invasion of our Country by Drug Dealers, Cartels, Human Traffickers, Coyotes and Illegal Immigrants, which they can do very easily, or our many companies and jobs that have been foolishly allowed to move South of the Border, will be brought back into the United States through taxation (Tariffs)," Trump said. "America has had enough!"
Economists and business groups have warned that the proposed tariffs will increase the costs of many Mexican goods, including fruits and vegetables, and impair trade.
But Mulvaney said he doubts businesses will pass on the costs to shoppers, and that consumers could simply choose to buy U.S. goods instead.
"American consumers will not pay the burden of these tariffs," he said.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have also signaled unease with the tariffs. The chairman of the Finance Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, said last week that the tariffs would "seriously jeopardize" congressional approval of the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal, which would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., on Sunday called the tariffs a "mistake" and said it was unlikely Trump would impose them.
"He's a very smart man," Kennedy said on CBS's Face the Nation. "He's been known to play with fire, but not live hand grenades. And if he slaps a 25% tariff on Mexico, it's going to tank the American economy, and I think the president knows that I don't think he'll do it. "
But Mulvaney said Sunday that Trump's threat is real.
"The numbers are huge," Mulvaney said, referring to the border crossings. "The situation is real. And the president is deadly serious about fixing the problem."
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro and Hope Yen of The Associated Press; by Christopher Rowland of The Washington Post; and by Steven T. Dennis, Ben Brody, Ros Krasny, Ben Bain and Mark Niquette of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 06/03/2019