Republican strategist Scott Jennings clashed with Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell about border security and tariffs on Mexican goods Thursday night.
Trump announced plans to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada in a Nov. 25 post on Truth Social insisting the two countries do more to halt the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs across their borders with the United States. Rampell complained that the price of avocados would increase, since Mexico provides 90% of the supply to the United States.
“I would love to talk about what Trump plans to do about this, and how not only will he fail at his promise at bringing grocery prices down, he will probably drive them up higher for a number of reasons. One of which is that he wants to deport most of our farm labor, labor force, not only the people who are here who are without authorization, people who are undocumented, but actually we have a lot of workers here who are on visas, temporary, basically seasonal agricultural visas, who are here legally, a visa program he wants to end,” Rampell claimed. “He wants to deport lots of people from other parts of the food processing system, people who work in meatpacking plants. Again, people who are here legally and who are not here legally.”
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“Beyond that, he wants to raise tariffs on the food that we bring in from other countries,” Rampell continued. “We get 90% of our avocados from Mexico and something like two thirds of our fresh tomatoes. These things will drive prices up, you know, so it’s not only a matter of — it’s hard to get them back down, it’s easy to get them up higher.”
Rampell, former Democratic State Representative Bakari Sellers of South Carolina and host Abby Phillip clashed with former Republican Senate candidate Jeff Bartos over the Trump economy before Jennings cut in.
“It’s not just going to be a negotiating tactic, there are going to be tariffs,” Phillip said, prompting Jennings to ask, “What‘s it worth to anybody to actually get these other countries, especially Mexico, to get their attention on immigration and drugs and everything else? What’s it worth? Is it — for you, you’re not willing to pay a quarter more for an avocado to fix this?”
Jennings and Rampell then went back and forth after Rampell claimed Mexico was cooperating.
“A year ago, the Mexican government deployed a lot more resources to their own southern border and have intercepted migrants on their way. Why are you shaking your head? This is the absolute truth. This is why —” Rampell claimed before Jennings cut in, saying, “It’s a mess.”
“That’s why border crossings are down 75%. They’re about what they were when Trump was in office,” Rampell said, with Jennings repeating, “It’s a mess.”
After Rampell said she “didn’t care” if Jennings called the border a “mess,” the two went back-and forth.
“Punishing our own consumers is not going to help Mexico —” Rampell said, before Jennings cut her off. “Avocado toast. It’s a huge problem. We have to fix this.”
The U.S. Border Patrol encountered over 7.4 million illegal immigrants since the start of fiscal year 2021, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
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