A tax on remittances would pay for the wall

Congress is still debating how to pay for the Great Wall Of Trump, but one of the President’s most important policies seems to have been forgotten, even by him. A remittance tax would allow him both to build the wall and have Mexico pay for it. And such a tax is more necessary than ever, because Latin America is becoming dangerously addicted to remittance payments from the U.S.

The Banco de México (Mexico’s Federal Reserve equivalent) just announced that remittances to Mexico from Mexicans abroad (nearly all here in the U.S.) hit an historic high in calendar year 2017. From January to November 2017, the total remittance sum sent to Mexico: $26.167 billion. That $26 billion-plus amount is a 6.15 percent increase over the January-November period of 2016 [Remesas aumentan 6.15% entre enero y noviembre del 2017, informa Banxico, “Remittances increase 6.15% from January to November of 2017, reports Bank of Mexico,” Noticieros Televisa, January 2, 2018].