Former Mexican President Slams Trump’s Plan to Pay for the Wall as “Absolutely Crazy”

Vicente Fox says the GOP front-runner’s scheme would “kill” the US economy.

Former president of Mexico Vicente FoxEl Universal/Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In an interview with Mother Jones on Tuesday, former Mexican president Vicente Fox intensified his war on Donald Trump and the GOP front-runner’s proposed wall between the United States and Mexico. In February, Fox declared, “I’m not going to pay for that fucking wall.” At that time, Trump had not detailed how he would make good on his plan to force Mexico to pay for the border wall. Since then, Trump has released a plan to compel Mexico to pick up the tab. He would demand from Mexico a one-time payment of $5 billion to $10 billion, and if Mexico failed to comply, he would freeze all wire transfers between undocumented workers and their home countries. He would also impose stiff trade tariffs on Mexican products and cancel visas for Mexicans traveling to the United States, and Mexican travelers would have to higher fees for visas and for border crossing cards.

Asked about Trump’s plan, Fox exclaimed it was “crazy” and demonstrated Trump’s “ignorance about the economy.” Fox added, “We cannot take him seriously.”

A wall along the southern border of the United States has become Trump’s most popular campaign promise. At his rallies, he routinely asks his throngs of supporters, “Who’s going to pay for the wall?” They scream in response, “Mexico!” In early April, when he released his plan for the wall, he estimated its construction would cost $8 billion he estimated. A more realistic estimate put the total closer to $25 billion, if he could even build it at all. His proposal asserted, “[W]e have the moral high ground here, and all the leverage.”

Fox, the president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, doesn’t think so. He told Mother Jones Tuesday that Trump’s plan makes no sense and would never happen. “It’s an absolutely crazy idea, it’s totally arbitrary, and it goes against established [practices] on transferences,” he said. “It’s impeding against the free transfer system that works throughout the world. He cannot do that. It’s impossible.”

Fox noted that Trump’s plan would backfire and harm the US economy, perhaps even Trump’s own businesses. Mexico and other countries, he said, would likely retaliate against the United States by imposing their own fees or restrictions on US money transfers, which would hurt American business. “It’s absolutely crazy,” Fox repeated. “It’s ignorant.” (Fox has trolled Trump on Twitter several times regarding the wall.)

Increasing tariffs on Mexican goods—and perhaps getting into a trade war with China, as Trump has suggested—would hurt US corporations doing business overseas, Fox insisted, and “kill the United States economy as we know it today.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not respond to a request for comment.

“Okay, what about the retaliation of Mexico, [which will say] I will not give visas to Americans to come to work in Mexico, or to come to Cancun?” Fox said. “It’s absolutely stupid. He’s going against all the operating procedures that we have developed worldwide through 200 years of history and open markets.”

Fox maintained that Trump shouldn’t be taken seriously, but he added, “The problem is that he’s causing severe damage to relationships that we hold in the world, diplomatic relationships, with all the free world. It’s just stupid.”

Trump has said that Mexico “has taken advantage” of the United States by allowing “gangs, drug traffickers, and cartels” to infiltrated the country and commit crimes here. Fox countered that the American drug market is the biggest in the world. “How can he have the moral ground if all of those drugs are consumed by his own citizens?” Fox remarked. “The huge drug consumption, the largest in the world, is right there in the United States.” Fox said the United States needed to do a better job of getting its own citizens to stop using drugs. He favors legalization as a means of reducing cartel violence. He also pointed out that most of the illegal drugs in the United States come from Central and South America (though the Mexican cartels do play a significant role).

Trump, Fox commented, is “showing his total ignorance about the way things work in this world.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate