Ambassador Bill Richardson says tariffs on Mexico over border security is the wrong policy and won't help. Watch on CNBC.
Quotes from the Interview:
“It’s going to hurt our ranchers, our agriculture people, our farmers, it’s going to be devastating. It’s a wrong policy because it’s based on the President’s impulses…there’s not strategy behind this and I think it’s putting his own agreement with Mexico in real jeopardy. If you’re going to have basically a free trade agreement and all of the sudden you keep using tariff trade wars on countries that you have agreements with, why is Mexico and Canada and the U.S. Congress going to want to approve this?”
“This does nothing to help the immigration issue. Mexico has been quite restrained. AMLO has not said anything terribly negative about the President talking about the wall, the immigration coming in, Mexico not doing enough. He’s been restrained. But now his back is against the wall. Mexico is going to have to retaliate if we pursue this foolish policy and it’s going to affect our economy and the border. Mexico is going to put sanctions on our products too. And what’s going to happen with the USMCA? It has to be ratified by the Mexican Senate. What if the Senate says we have to start striking back at the United States?...I don’t understand the strategy and it helps nothing with immigration when you’re saying that we’re cutting off aid to Central American countries that are the ones that are sending a lot of these asylum seekers and migrants to the U.S. border. I don’t understand the strategy."
Ambassador Bill Richardson served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 to 1998, Secretary of Energy from 1998 to 2000, and Governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011.
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