Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said President Donald Trump’s 25 percent tariffs expected to be imposed on Mexico at midnight tonight may be a tool the president is using to attract businesses to set up shop in the U.S.
At midnight, 25 percent tariffs are planned to take effect on all goods from Mexico – in addition to additional tariffs on Canada and China – as Trump determined that the country has not taken the adequate steps to deter illegal immigration and illegal drug activity at the southern border.
Bensman, however, believes that Trump may have another ambition with the expected tariff on Mexican goods, given that the country has mobilized troops and taken action in recent weeks to adhere to Trump’s demand to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal drugs.
“We’ve got all these spy flights going on. We’re sending the CIA in there. We’ve got the green berets down there training. I didn’t think that we were ready to start kinetic operations yet. I wonder whether he’ll actually push the tariff button tonight, but maybe there’s something else at play here,” Bensman explained on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“I was reading that Trump is very interested in forcing auto parts manufacturing companies, maquiladoras, down there to pick up and move back into the United States and tariffs might do that. It could be something like that at play here as well, that Trump is just gambling on that and the fentanyl’s not really all what it’s about,” Bensman added.
In the case Trump does not have other ambitions with the tariffs, Bensman acknowledged that Mexico could be employing other tactics to completely “wipe out” drug cartels operating within its borders.
“Trump uses terminology like ‘total elimination.’ His policy toward the cartels is total elimination. That means the military physically destroying cartels, disrupting and destroying, as well as the overarching Mexican government officialdom that runs them, that’s in league with them,” Bensman said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo” by Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.
