Mexico is going to pay for the wall, right? No?
No, Mexico isn't going to pay for Trump's fantasy border wall and they were never going to, but Trump has continued to insist that they will in the most nonsensical ways possible.
I mean, I say 'nonsensical,' but what this really appears to be is some form of mental incapacity or incoherence.
Cameras caught Trump telling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he would be proud to shut down the government if they don't give him money for a border wall, but he reportedly told them in private that his fake NAFTA deal will pay for it.
According to sources with knowledge of private portions of Trump's contentious meeting with the Democratic leaders, Trump insisted that Mexico would eventually pay for the wall. He said that would happen via the newly updated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), now named the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
One person familiar with the meeting told Business Insider that the president said the USMCA will bring so much money into the US that it would be almost as if Mexico paid for the wall.
To be clear, Mexico is not going to pay us money under the USMCA, or NAFTA, or any other trade agreement. Trade does not mean one country literally pays another. That's not how anything works. When nations engage in trade, consumers is one nation purchase goods from private businesses in another.
Even if Trump was implying that Mexico will pay for his wall through tariffs, he'd be wrong again. Tariffs are a tax on consumers so, in this scenario, American consumers would pay for the wall.
Trump's "US-Mexico-Canada Agreement" is not expected to have any meaningful impact on economic growth because it's nigh indistinguishable from the North American Free Trade Agreement. The new agreement is hardly "new" at all and does not make any meaningful changes to the law or at least not any that will be immediately noticeable if it's ratified by Congress next year.
The idea that phantom economic growth from Trump's fake trade deal will pay for his wall is even less credible than the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves.
Our so-called "president" is arguably incapacitated and not capable of performing his duties.