President Trump has threatened to close the border with Mexico because of the lack of support from that country in curtailing the increased illegal crossings. The President is doing this to force the Mexican government into action and not to affect a decrease in illegal border crossings since the border is already closed to illegals.
This is the same strategy that the President used when shutting down the Federal Government in order to force through his border wall funding. This did not work then and will not work now. Closing the border for an extended period of time will negatively affect the U.S. economy and I am not talking about just a shortage of avocados. 600 Billion dollars a year in trade crosses our southern border, of that $137 billion is food, the rest in manufactured goods. I doubt the American people will put up with that for long. With the 2020 elections coming up the last thing our President wants to do is create economic problems that would cause pain for hard working Americans. Difficulties that the Democrats and MSM would take advantage of and use to hammer President Trump throughout the campaign.
I know the President sees himself as a tough negotiator and it has served him well in his previous business dealings. If this threat of a border closure does work it will be a win for us but if the bluff does not work and he were to follow through with a border closure it will end up being a disaster for his administration and will jeopardize his chance of reelection. However it is very possible that the Mexican government sees this as only a bluff and may just ignore it. If this is the case it will be interesting to see what the President will do next.
