When candidate Donald Trump first proposed renegotiating NAFTA back in 2015 everyone was stunned. Fixing bad trade deals had never been proposed by any candidate. Candidate Trump also proposed a border wall. Those two policy initiatives are entirely connected. Almost immediately the government of Mexico realized the potential impact and threatened to use illegal migration if NAFTA was reopened.

Well, Trump won the presidency. The crony capitalists/lobbyists in DC (U.S. Chamber of Commerce – Tom Donohue) are freaking out. Congress was notified of the intent to renegotiate NAFTA. Mexico and Canada were notified. Commerce Secretary Ross, U.S.T.R Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin are ready to begin next week (Wed).

President Trump and Secretary Ross have already announced they will try to renegotiate NAFTA on a trilateral basis (U.S., Canada and Mexico). However, if it doesn’t work, they’ll scrap the 3-way NAFTA and go one-on-one with individual bilateral agreements.

Today Mexico’s Economic Minister Ildefonso Guajardo threatens to flood the U.S. with South American illegal aliens, criminals and gang members as leverage to keep exploiting NAFTA.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico could pull back on cooperation in migration and security matters if the United States walks away from talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Mexican economy minister said in a newspaper report published on Thursday.

Ildefonso Guajardo, who will take part in the first round of NAFTA talks with U.S. and Canadian officials in Washington on Wednesday, told the Reforma daily that new tariffs on Mexican exports to the United States were unacceptable.

“If they do not treat [us] well commercially, they should not expect us to treat them well by containing the migration that comes from other regions of the world and crosses Mexico,” Guajardo said. “Or they should not expect to be treated well in collaboration with security issues in the region.”

Guajardo also said if U.S. President Donald Trump moves to impose tariffs of 35 percent on any Mexican exports, Mexico could respond with “mirror” actions, such as putting an equal tariff on U.S. yellow corn. (read more)

My response to that threat: