It seems you cannot turn your television on this week without hearing about the looming avocado crisis. President Trump has informed Mexico that the US will impose a 5% tariff on all imported goods from their country, starting on June 10.
Every month, the tariff will increase by 5% until it hits 25% in October. The tariffs will remain in place until Mexico gets off its lazy rear-end and puts a stop to the unending river of illegal aliens from the rest of the world who are pouring through Mexico right now and not stopping until they hit US soil.
Because Trump is the villain of every mainstream media story these days, we’re being told that the Mexico tariffs will cause an economic catastrophe. The price of avocados will go up, you will DIE, and it’s all Trump’s fault.
Every economist on the tube this past week has been moaning about how American consumers will have to bear the unbearable pain of tariffs on avocados from Mexico, due to Trump’s awfulness. I’m not a fancy-pants economist, but let’s fact-check this, shall we?
Jumbo avocados cost 99 cents at my local grocery store. They may be a bit more or less where you live, but let’s call the price a buck even, just for simplicity’s sake. On June 10, when the first 5% tariff kicks in, the price of an avocado will *snicker* SKYROCKET to $1.05.
If October rolls around, the 25% tariff kicks in, and we are not all dead yet, an avocado will cost… $1.25. I don’t know about your family, but in my household, this will cause our monthly grocery budget to swell by $0.00 for the next half-century.
Maybe I’m too much of a skeptic, but $1.25 avocados just don’t seem like the extinction-level event that the economists keep telling us it will be. Considering the fact that Bill Clinton was in office the last time that I politely pretended to like avocados when I was a guest at someone’s dinner party (Blech!), I think I will personally weather the avocado storm just fine.
The real reason why everyone is howling about the tariff threat is because it is effective, it will work, and it will punish Mexico for its rotten behavior.
If the tariff on Mexico’s avocados gets up to $1.25 apiece, American avocado growers (yes, we have avocado growers) will suddenly say, “This is great! Now I can sell my avocados right here in America for $1.15 apiece and still make a profit, instead of shipping them to New Zealand to break even because we have a zillion retarded free trade deals.”
If Americans start buying American-grown avocados, then Mexico’s avocado growers are stuck with avocados that they suddenly have no market in which to sell them. When Mexican avocado growers feel the pain, they will put pressure on their communist government to make the pain go away, i.e., do what America wants.
I fail to see a downside.
The same goes for all of the other goods that we import from Mexico. Economists are acting as if Mexico is the only place where we can get fruits, vegetables, cars and other stuff. Nope.
If the price of Mexican goods becomes too expensive, we don’t suddenly stop buying those things. We shop for the better price, and Mexico suffers as a result of our free market choice as consumers. THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT!
In a totally related story that will go over the heads of the economists and the CDC, America will suddenly stop having monthly E. coli outbreaks if we’re eating American-grown and American-harvested fruits and vegetables. It’s a miracle!
The wall on the southern border is growing at a painfully slow pace. Meanwhile, 100,000 illegal aliens Central America, South America, Africa, the Middle East, India – from everywhere, really – are crossing the border every month. We need a solution right now.
Mexico is facilitating this invasion because it is a hostile foreign power. It is aiding and abetting every criminal alien crossing our southern border, when it could more easily patrol and control its own southern border and halt the flow immediately.
Mexico can be a better neighbor, or it can continue being a cruddy neighbor. But being a cruddy neighbor will now have a price associated with it.
Will tariffs on goods from Mexico cause some minor short-term pain? Sure, in some cases.
The alternative is that we lose our country. If America collapses under the weight of open borders and forcing the citizenry to pay cradle-to-grave welfare benefits to foreign invaders who will never be able to contribute to our economy, that seems like it will be more painful for our children and grandchildren than paying $1.25 for avocados.
And if avocados are the best example they can come up with to try to scare us, is Mexico really worth having for a trading partner?
