Mexico Ready to Respond if Washington Decides to Tax Mexican Goods

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray says that the Mexican government is ready to respond with similar measures if the United States imposes a 20-percent tax on goods from Mexico in order to pay for the border wall.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – The Mexican government is ready to respond with similar measures if the United States imposes a 20-percent tax on goods from Mexico in order to pay for the border wall, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray has announced.

"Probably the answer would not be to impose a generalized tax on all imports coming from the United States because that would hurt the Mexican consumer… we would do it selectively, as it was once done," Videgaray said in a Friday interview with Radio Formula.

The Trump administration has suggested imposing a 20 percent tax on US imports from Mexico to pay for the border wall.

On January 25, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order putting the Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in charge of building the US-Mexico border wall.

Kelly released a memo on Tuesday ordering the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to begin the construction without any delay, and ordered to identify and allocate all sources of possible funding for the wall.