We could build walls around them.
It’ll be interesting to see if the TV viewing figures will be greater when the Mexican Wall comes down than when the Berlin Wall came down. 
… because, as we’ve seen, he doesn’t care if what he says has any relation to the truth at all.
And it doesn’t have to limited to remittances. If the GOP passes a corporate tax reform including a ‘border adjusted cash flow tax’, he can say the non-deductibility of the cost of imports from Mexico is effectively Mexico paying for the wall. Even though that non-deductibility would apply to imports from everywhere else too. Even though it’s not money physically collected from foreign countries or nationals. But I took one of his recent statements to actually hint at defining it that way. Anyway it’s definitely not limited to remittances.
And I think it’s part of the ‘method to the madness’ of Trump generally if political opponents think they will get the best of him by future ‘expose pieces’ in media explaining how Mexico didn’t really pay for the ‘wall’, or that it’s not really a wall, or it’s not really completely effective. If he builds up border security, there’s some semi-plausible accounting by which he can say the money came from Mexico, and in the context of a generally good economy (not saying that has much to do with Mexico Wall either way, but Trump needs a decent economy to get reelected), it’s a win for him.
The change in politics by Trump is winning a national election, though barely, on an explicit platform of cracking down on illegal immigration. A good chunk of voters who approve of that were afraid for their candidates to openly advocate it because they thought it would make those candidates lose. Now that it’s proven non-fatal, the basic policy itself is fairly popular. Illegal immigration, or the belief there shouldn’t be any such thing (just come on in!) is not broadly popular.
For a lot of the rest, it’s the old problem of Trump critics tending to take him literally but not seriously where his supporters take him seriously but not literally. Which isn’t to say it’s sure win. If Trump creates disproportionate economic problem with Mexico, or the ‘wall’ goes way over budget, or some external events in Latin America (the big land flow is people crossing Mexico, no longer necessarily from Mexico, besides many coming in other ways) increase the migrant flow despite his efforts, then it could be negative for him. I’m just arguing against the idea that ‘proving’ Mexico didn’t really pay etc. is going to be a killer political app v Trump, it won’t be IMO.
This.
Looks like the plan is to charge a 20% tariff on all goods coming here from Mexico. Imports amount to about $300 billion/year. Hard to say what the downside impact will be at this point.
A common response to a tariff is to put a tariff on our exports to them. Mexico accounts for about 15% of US exports, about $235 billion a year.
Which means they could pay for the wall with the money they get from us-win/win all around! 
Like I said, reading the various sentences there about ‘Congressional GOP plan’ and ‘eventually’ apply to all imports, what that could turn out meaning is simply the non-deductibility of the cost of imports under a corporate tax plan with a ‘border adjusted cash flow tax’ and a rate of 20%, the GOP Congressional starting proposal, which also makes revenue from exports not subject to corporate tax. That mimics what almost every country with a VAT does: applies it to imports, rebates it on exports. Trump was also recently quoted saying that the ‘border adjustment’ of the GOP plan is ‘too complicated’, but it amounts to essentially the same thing as he’s being quoted saying he’d do here.
If so (either way actually) does that mean Mexico is really paying? Like any tax, there’s the question of incidence. For example, do stores pay a sales tax or people buying things at stores? And with either an explicit import tax or the semi-equivalent border adjusted cash flow tax, there’s the additional complication that it should in theory cause the US$ to strengthen against foreign currencies, offsetting some of the tax effect on both buyers and sellers.
But would Trump’s political undoing be for some media story or politic opponents to ‘reveal’ Mexico wasn’t ‘really’ paying? Again I don’t think so.
The downside impact is that it will be the American consumers paying for the wall.
Paying for it twice: Once when the government builds it and the second time when goods increase in cost due to the tariff. Actually, three times: Illegal immigration will go up due to the economic slowdown in Mexico.
They should just rent out space on the wall for ads. A Billboard border.
A chain of bookstores on the border. Any suggestions for a name?
And possibly violate NAFTA.
And American manufacturers will suffer when Mexico imposes a retaliatory tariff on imports from the US.
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback.
You have a better understanding of the mechanisms than I do.
I certainly agree that in a normal sense a 5% tax on 24B/yr won’t pay for a 15B project. I had thought the remittences were higher than that. However, I don’t think such a detail will stop Trump and the Reps in congress. The promise of 1.2B/yr is enough for congress to vote in a lot of spending. As usual in Washington, the budget is one thing and the actual expenditures are another. The administration will claim they can build what they want with 1B/yr, the relevant committees will agree and the actual contracts will be signed with unfunded options. Options that will be deemed necessary and part of normal cost growth. The Gov’t buys things that way all the time. There could be plenty of photo-ops built with that funding stream. We aren’t talking about a moonshot here where it actually has to work. Looks are all that is important.
As for the collection costs, I had no idea there are so many wire transfer services out there. I know about Western Union and I assumed there were a couple of competitors. Still, I don’t think the actual costs of collecting these funds will be that great. Surely the bulk of the transfers go through a few big services, and all of the services will have to file something. The ones that try to slip by will do so and the actual amount raised will be less than anticipated but remember, what is important is the budget estimate congress uses to pass the legislation. Once they predict a certain amount, the actual $ raised aren’t important.
Congress took care of that in 2008 (6?). They passed a law exempting a border wall from all environmental, state, and local regulations. That is not going to be a problem.
Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted that raising taxes on Corona, tequila, and margaritas is… wait for it… “Mucho sad.”
This is not a joke.
NAFTA was implemented by a legislative act, the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, in the US and thus the US could withdraw by the same. NAFTA was not ratified as a treaty by the US Senate, merely garnering a 61 vote majority in the Senate on the implementation act. That is short of the 67 Senate votes needed to approve a resolution of ratification (the typical means of the Senate granting Advice and Consent per Constitutional requirements).
So if Trump can get the Republicans in Congress to pass a bill modifying NAFTA he could sign it. Of course Mexico and/or Canada could do the same from their ends.
Come on, he’s going to fianance this the same way he did all his other construction projects. Hire Mexican contractors to build the wall and then stiff them on the payment.