WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday said he plans to give Mexico a “one-year warning” before closing the southern border, retreating on a threat he made last week that he would close the border this week if Mexico did not halt all unauthorized immigration.
“The only thing, frankly, better and less drastic than closing the border is tariff the cars coming in, and I will do it,” Trump said, speaking to reporters after a meeting with the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. “I don’t play games.”
He added: “If the drugs don’t stop or aren’t largely stopped, we’re going to put tariffs on Mexico and products, in particular cars — the whole ballgame is cars. And if that doesn’t stop the drugs, we close the border.”
Last Friday, Trump announced on Twitter that “If Mexico doesn’t immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through our Southern Border, I will be CLOSING the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week.”
But since then, the White House has backed off that time frame for an action that would carry severe economic consequences if Trump followed through with it. Nearly $1.7 billion of goods and services flow across the U.S.-Mexico border every day, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. About 500,000 legal workers, students, shoppers and tourists also cross the border on a daily basis.
Trump’s latest reversal came after Republican lawmakers and his own economic advisers warned him of the consequences of the move. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate majority leader, warned, “I would hope that we would not be doing that sort of thing.”
And White House officials have been vague about the president’s plans to follow through on his threat. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters earlier this week that Trump “is not working on a specific timeline.” And on Tuesday, during a meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, the president stated, “I haven’t made that intention known,” when asked specifically about his own threat to close the border this week.
Talking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, Trump said that he was going to either close the southern border with America’s third-largest trading partner, or “tariff the cars.” He said he would “probably start off with the tariffs.”
The president is scheduled to travel to Calexico, California, on Friday for a photo opportunity with a newly fortified section of the border.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.