CNN’s Republican Shill Says Tariffs Are Not Enough, Proposes Starting a Drug War with Mexico

One of the absolute worst ideas that Donald Trump has proposed since becoming president-elect is his promise to impose new tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico, America’s biggest trading partners. His justification for this is that it would serve as a lever to make them end the trafficking of drugs into the United States.

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General Donald Trump on CNN

Never mind that economists and trade experts agree that such a reckless and ill-considered act “would significantly increase U.S. inflation next year [and] curtail economic growth.” Trump doesn’t really care about the welfare of the American people. If he did he wouldn’t lie to them so flagrantly and frequently.

SEE THIS: OUCH! Trump’s Flagrant Lies About 14,000 ‘Criminal’ Migrants Gets a Devastating Fact-Check

If the gullible rubes who voted for Trump think that he is going to lower the price of gas or eggs, they are going to be woefully disappointed. To the contrary, his plans will increase the costs of everything from fruit to toys to shoes to cars, and more. And to rub some salt into those wounds, it won’t have the slightest impact on drug trafficking.

Which makes the following exchange about Trump’s initiatives on CNN, between economic contributor Catherine Rampell and Republican hack Scott Jennings, all the more troubling…

Rampell: Mexico has actually put a lot more border security on its southern border.
Jennings: It’s really working wonders. This is crazy.
Rampell: Yes, again, border crossings are down 75 percent. They’re back to what they were under Trump.
Jennings: If I were [Mexican President Sheinbaum], I would be prepared for my country to possibly have United States military incursions to take out the drug factories and the people who do this to us too.
Rampell: So, you think we should not only have a trade war, we should have a military war with Mexico?
Jennings: I think we have to do what we have to do to stop the drugs.

So Jennings, who has previously supported deploying the military within the U.S. to round up immigrants for mass deportation, now also wants the Army to invade our allied neighbor to South to put an end to the Fentanyl crisis at home. The minions of MAGA have become the foremost advocates of military engagements. Unless, of course, it is aimed at preventing Vladimir Putin from invading and annexing our friends in Ukraine.

Rampell was correct to note that border crossings are down 75 percent. What’s more, most of the Fentanyl coming into the U.S. is brought in by American citizens through legal ports of entry. And there is a reason for the flood of drugs into the U.S. There’s a huge market for it. Fentanyl trafficking would end if Americans would stop buying it. It isn’t an international crime problem. It’s a domestic public health problem. These and other concerns were addressed by President Sheinbaum following Trump’s tariff threat…

“Mexico’s main exporters to the U.S. are General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Company, which came to Mexico 80 years ago. Why put a tax on them that puts them at risk? It is not acceptable and would cause the U.S. and Mexico inflation and job losses.” […]

“Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country. We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours.”

The military “solution” that Jennings proposed would be worse than ineffective. It would be objectively harmful. It would put the lives American soldiers, as well as innocent Mexican civilians, at risk. It would do nothing to reduce drug trafficking because, as long as there is a demand, the traffickers will seek to fill it. They would just raise their prices along with the legal businesses who respond to the tariffs.

Worst of all, it would destroy the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, it’s biggest trading partner. It would accelerate inflation at home, and waste billions of dollars and military resources.

Yet somehow CNN is comfortable having a regular contributor on their air making these preposterous and dangerous proposals. Jennings is not a serious conservative commentator. He is war mongering fanatic whose opinions are not worthy of being disseminated by any reputable news enterprise. And if CNN wants to be regarded as “reputable,” they need to dispose of Jennings.

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