On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Harris-Walz Campaign Co-Chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) stated that 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump’s vow to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico if they don’t fix the issue of migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border through Mexico is “just another reminder that Trump’s idea of how to conduct international relations is through threats and bullying.”
Co-host John Roberts asked, [relevant exchange begins around 2:20] “Did you hear what he said this morning about possible tariffs against Mexico, when he said he will contact — if he becomes president, on day one — he’ll contact the Mexican president…and he’ll say, fix the problem with people coming up through Central America and Panama and everywhere else in the world through Mexico or I’m going to slap a 25% tariff on everything coming out of Mexico, and he believes that that’s a no-brainer for [Mexico’s president], that she’ll say, we can’t deal with that, I’ll fix the border?”
Coons responded, “Well, that’s just another reminder that Trump’s idea of how to conduct international relations is through threats and bullying.”
Roberts then said, “But it works.”
Coons continued, “Mexico is our largest trading partner. It didn’t work really well the last time he was president with our key allies around the world. I met with the heads of state from countries like Australia, Canada, Germany, Korea, who found his unmoored and unbalanced leadership style discouraging, and, at some times, unnerving. I do think that we need to address border security. There’s a great way to do it, a bipartisan bill that was on the floor of the Senate and we should have passed, months and months ago, except for former President Trump weighing in against it on the day we were to take it up and pass it. That will get taken up, passed, and signed into law by Vice President Harris in her first couple of weeks in office. And it’s my hope that we’ll have a positive agenda to work on, not one that imposes tariffs on every imported product from around the world.”
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