Imagining a Trump presidency

(Photo: Shizuo Kambayashi – AP)

Ok, let’s imagine for a moment that Donald Trump becomes the next U.S. president, and meets his promises to build a 1, 000-mile wall along the Mexican border, slap a 35 percent import tax on Mexican car imports and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. How would all of this impact average Americans?

Trump says that these measures would help “make America great again.” But most economists agree that they would make almost everything more expensive for average Americans — from the car you drive to the lettuce you buy at the supermarket — and kill many more U.S. jobs than those they would help create.

Let’s start with Trump’s idea to build a border wall. It’s a dubious U.S. priority at a time when, according to U.S. Census figures compiled by the Pew Research Center, illegal migration from Mexico has dropped dramatically since 2008.

Furthermore, assuming that Trump’s proposed wall costs “only” $8 billion, as he claims, it may be a waste of money: more than 40 percent of undocumented immigrants don’t enter the United States by crossing the southern border, but come in by air with tourist visas, and overstay their visas. A border wall would do nothing to stop them.

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