White House Already Walking Back Import Tax to Fund Wall

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CNN is reporting the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is walking back his comments, made just moments ago, about the US utilizing a 20% import tax on Mexican goods to fund the border wall. He was quoted as saying the idea was a mere example of one way to raise revenue.

“When you look at the plan that’s taking shape now, using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico,” Spicer said on the flight back from Philadelphia, where Trump addressed congressional Republicans at their annual retreat. “If you tax that $50 billion at 20 percent of imports — which is by the way a practice that 160 other countries do — right now our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. By doing it, that we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding.”

“This is something that we’ve been in close contact with both houses in moving forward and creating a plan,” Spicer added. “It clearly provides the funding and does so in a way that the American taxpayer is wholly respected.”

RELATED: Spicer: Border Wall Will Be Paid for With 20% Import Tax

Later, however, he later seemed to walk back those comments, saying a tax on imports was one possibility for raising revenue, not a specific proposal for raising revenue to fund the wall, says CNN.

“The idea was that there have been questions about how the president could pay for the wall,” Spicer said later Thursday. “One idea through comprehensive tax reform is that there could be this idea that [House] Speaker [Paul] Ryan and others have floated, but through tax reform you could actually look at imports from countries that we have a trade deficit with that could generate revenue.”

Trying to clarify his original stance, Spicer added: “And the idea is to show that generating revenue for the wall is not as difficult as some might have suggested.”