Mexican officials and border town residents criticized US President Donald Trump on Wednesday for threatening to levy a tax on cars crossing into the US to fund his signature border wall.
The mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Armando Cabada, slammed Trump’s proposed car tax as a political stunt aimed at garnering support ahead of the US election in November.
“It was an issue that gave him votes in the last election, and now he’s using it again, in a desperate manner, to try to secure these same votes,” said Cabada, whose city lies across from the Texas city of El Paso.
About 73 million personal vehicles crossed from Mexico into the US in 2019, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, an average of 200,000 cars every day.
Trump made the suggestion during a speech in Yuma, Arizona, on Tuesday, in which he vowed Mexico is “100 percent” paying for the wall.
“They going to pay at the border…cars going through. We’re going to do a toll,” he said.
Cuidad Juarez resident Hector Escobado accused Trump of misrepresenting the plan, saying that instead of forcing Mexico to pay, the toll would tax US citizens like himself.
“Many of us are US citizens who live here in Mexico and cross back and forth almost every day. He would be charging us,” he said.
The thousands of Mexicans and dual citizens who cross into the US daily include essential workers who help keep US hospitals running amid the pandemic.
A worker fix the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, in San Diego, the United States, April 30, 2018. (Xinhua/Huang Heng)
