Three Ways to Make Mexico Pay for Trump's Mexican American Wall

One of Trump’s most (in)famous campaign promises is the several hundred mile long wall along the Mexican-American border. The oddest thing about this is how he intends to pay for it - from Mexico’s pocketbook. How the heck would anyone in their right mind think Mexico would pay for the wall? Even Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said it’s not going to happen.

1. Trump’s Plan: Strong arm Mexico with our trade deficit.

According to Trump’s website, he’ll threaten to make a rule (based on a section of the Patriot Act) that would prevent some Mexicans from wiring money to family back home to Mexico. This rule, according to Trump’s website, would cost Mexico “approximately $24 billion a year.” Trump seems to think the wall will only cost at most $10 billion. He simply asks that “Mexico…make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year.” Will Mexico call Trump’s bluff on the proposed rule? Is it a bluff?

Will the wall cost that little? I mean, $10 billion, or $10,000,000,000.00, seems a lot to me. There’s over 2,000 miles of border, 600+ miles that are land borders.

2. War with Mexico.

Go to war with Mexico until they pay. Of course, the last time we went to war with Mexico, back in 1846, we ended up paying Mexico $15 million, so I don’t see this ending too well. Plus the fact we’ve already been at war in Iraq since 2003 - Americans are already tired of war.

Although, we’re already at war with Mexico’s drug cartels, so it wouldn’t be a big stretch to move that fight to Mexico itself.

3. Loan Mexico the money and have Mexico build it.

I think this would be the most likely to work. Give Mexico $10 billion with the promise they’ll repay it. Have Mexico build the wall with Mexican labor. Mexico repays with little or no interest when the wall is complete. What can go wrong, other than the fact they’ll never finish it?

My final though on this - does Mexico have $10 billion to through at the wall? Wikipedia says Mexico is $341 billion but has $177.597 billion in reserves. The International Monetary Fund says Mexico has $179,708.03 million ($179 billion) in resevers. I beleive these are in U.S. dollars. So there’s enough money there for Trump’s $10 billion. But will the wall really cost $10 billion?