TIL Desk/Business/World/Washington-The US has warned it may impose a 20 per cent tax on imports from countries with a trade deficit with it to fund a wall President Donald Trump wants to build along America’s southern border with Mexico, the White House has said. The proposal, however, is currently only for Mexico, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters travelling with Trump from Philadelphia to Washington DC aboard Air Force One.
This is one of the ways to pay for the wall that the US is planning to construct along the US-Mexico border. But on a broader scale, such a statement from Trump administration indicates imports from other countries – like India and China – could also be hit by the tax proposal, given the trade deficit the US has with them.
“When you look at the plan that’s taking shape now, using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit with, like Mexico. “If you tax that USD 50 billion at 20 per cent of imports, which is by the way a practice that 160 other countries do… By doing it we can do USD 10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone,” Spicer said.
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