“By doing it that way, we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding,” Spicer told CNN, referring to a 20 percent tax.
According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Mexico’s exports to the U.S. in 2015 were valued at $316.4 billion.
The trade deficit is estimated to be $50 billion.
“It clearly provides the funding and does so in a way that the American taxpayer is wholly respected,” Spicer told CNN.
Spicer did not answer questions about the impact of the import tax on American consumers, focusing instead on the tax’s benefits for American workers.
President Enrique Peña Nieto on Thursday called off a trip to Washington after President Trump launched his plan to construct a border wall and stressed he would make Mexico pay for it. Trump, speaking at the GOP retreat, said the decision to cancel the meeting with the Mexican president was mutual.
Border chief fired
Obama administration Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan was asked for his resignation, the agency announced Thursday.
His departure comes just a day after Trump issued a broad set of new directives to Border Patrol agents to step up enforcement of existing laws. He ended Obama’s “catch and release” policy for illegals and announced the hiring of 3,000 new ICE agents.
Morgan was hired just seven months ago. His appointment was the first time in nearly 100 years that a border chief had been named from outside the agency, Fox News reported.
His last day will be Jan. 31.
Morgan once supported immigration reform, including amnesty for illegals.
Senior State Department officials axed
Meanwhile, CNN reported that the Trump administration asked the senior management of the U.S. State Department to leave. Most of them were political appointees who should have resigned by now but didn’t.
The State Department is in charge of handing out visas and administering the refugee resettlement program, although most of the actual resettlement work is done by government contractors affiliated with the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Episcopalians, Church World Services, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the evangelical group World Relief.
Mexican president demands ‘respect’ from Trump
Hours after Trump signed executive orders to curb illegal immigration, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto promised to protect Mexicans in the United States by providing legal aid.
“Where there is a Mexican migrant at risk that requires our support, your country should be there,” Peña Nieto said in a brief address to his nation.
“Our communities are not alone,” Peña Nieto said, according to CNBC. “The Mexican government will provide them with the legal advice, which guarantees the protection they require.”