Donald Trump threatens remittance blackmail to fund construction

WASHINGTON: New Delhi, Beijing, Manila and Paris may want to sit up and take notice. Donald Trump plans to make Mexico pay for the wall he intends to build on the US border by cutting off remittances —transfer of money by a foreign worker to his home country — till it coughs up the lolly.
This unprecedented threat —detailed in a two-page memo Trump has drawn up — could decimate the Mexican economy, which receives around $24 billion annually in remittances, and is the fifth largest remittance-receiving country in the world.The top four (for whom this should serve as a warning about the methods Trump would consider to settle accounts): India ($72 billion in remittances in 2015), China ($64 billion), Philippines ($30 billion), and France ($25 billion).
The memo, with the subject line “Compelling Mexico to Pay for the Wall,” offers an insight into the kind of bareknuckle tactics Trump will employ to offset what he sees as economic injustice against the US, including withholding of visas and trade tarrifs.
“Our approvals of hundreds of thousands of visas every year is one of our greatest leverage points,” Trump writes. “We also have leverage through business and tourist visas for important people in the Mexican economy.”
The memo, first given to the Washington Post in April, includes “rationales for a number of potential intimidation tactics, including increased trade tariffs, the cancellation of visas and higher fees for border-crossing cards,” the paper said.
Although the memo is specific to Mexico, it suggests that Trump will employ strongarm tactics, including financial pressure, to coerce any country that will not toe his line. Already, he has sounded a warning to Nato partners and US allies that they have to cough up what virtually amounts to “protection money” — paying more money to Washington for security guarantees.
Although Trump claims to have the “moral high ground… and all the leverage” with respect to making Mexico pay for the wall, many experts have questioned the legality and feasibility of the plan, and whether it meets the standards of international propriety.
President Obama himself has rubbished the ideas. “This is just one more example of something that is not thought through and is primarily put forward for political consumption,” Obama said in April.
The implications with respect to ending remittances… are enormous, he warned, noting that if the Mexican economy collapses as a result, “it would end up sending more immigrants north because they can’t find jobs back in Mexico.”
But judging by the delirious joy with which Trump’s promise to make Mexico pay for the wall was greeted in Arizona, his fan base is not listening. Democrat supporters attribute this to their being “poorly educated.”