In a worrisome preview of what the next four years could hold, Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated that he would make Mexico pay for a multi-billion-dollar wall along the southern border, and flew into a rage when President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico said he would not. Trump suggested Nieto shouldn’t bother attending a meeting the two had scheduled in the U.S. next week if Mexico wouldn’t pay up, and Nieto promptly agreed. The White House, which later claimed that the canceled meeting was a joint decision, then dispatched Press Secretary Sean Spicer to float the possibility of a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports to make them pay for the wall. Finally, as if to underscore the madness of the entire diplomatic blowup, Spicer quickly walked the comment back, clarifying that he was just throwing out the proposed tariff not as policy but as an option. The Trump administration, he suggested, was just spitballing.

Will the 20 percent tax happen? Who knows! Considering Trump’s entire campaign was centered around promising to keep the Mexican “rapists” and ”criminals” out of the U.S., and Mexico is now making him look weak in front of the gullible voters who fell for his “Mexico will pay” shtick, Trump might just be angry and delusional enough to go for it. The punch line, of course, is that an import tax on Mexican goods would hit U.S. consumers, meaning that Joe the Plumber would ultimately be the one financing Trump’s big, beautiful edifice. But this administration is not big on facts.

According to a Friday note from Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Caitlin Webber, “If all imports in the first 11 months of 2016 had been charged a 20 percent duty, U.S. importers would have paid about $54 billion in tariffs, far more than some of the higher estimates for the wall’s cost of $15 billion.”

Representatives of the agriculture industry, which includes a significant percentage of produce from Mexico, were not pleased. “It is very troubling for world food and agricultural markets for administration spokespersons to bandy about terms like a 20% tax on all imports from Mexico or other countries,” says Tom Stenzel, president and C.E.O. of the United Fresh Produce Association. “Consider the impact on American consumers of a 20% hike in the cost of foods such as bananas, mangoes and other products that we simply cannot grow in the United States. Consider also what other countries would do to block U.S. exports in retaliation. As the Administration looks to incentivize manufacturing jobs in the U.S., we urge President Trump to consider the unique nature of food and not place a new food tax on American consumers.“

And let’s not forget the Coronas and snacks:

Perhaps somebody could explain to Agent Orange that a massive new tax would not only hurt U.S. consumers, particularly the working class, by driving up what they need to pay for goods, but that it could ultimately kill jobs, too. Per CNN Money’s Patrick Gillespie:

“Higher prices on some products mean that Americans would have less money to spend on others...That would end up costing jobs. That's what happened in 2009 after President Obama used tariffs on Chinese tires. It cost more jobs than it saved because prices for tires went up, one study found. And a Trump tariff would apply to many more products, so the ripple effects would be a lot broader.”

Finally, as if it matters, somebody might also like to inform the Trump administration that it is not actually allowed to just decide these things on its own.

But hey! It’s a small price to pay for the president of the United States to be able to settle a score and protect his pride. What’s the worst that could happen?