House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday President Trump’s new threat to impose tariffs on Mexican imports is an effort to distract from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
“It’s a distraction from the Mueller report, and it’s served it’s purpose, and here we are,” the California Democrat said after reporters asked her a series of questions about the looming tariffs.
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Trump said he’ll impose a 5% tariff beginning June 10 unless Mexico takes steps to deter hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants from crossing into Mexico and traveling to the U.S. southern border.
Migrants reaching levels of 100,000 per month have crossed into the United States from Mexico, overwhelming the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies trying to cope with the surge.
The threat comes as House Democrats are bearing down on Trump with oversight investigations and the threat of an impeachment inquiry. The Mueller report did not find Trump guilty of collusion but left open whether he tried to obstruct the two-year probe, which Democrats believe is a directive from Mueller for them to pick up the inquiry.
Pelosi condemned the tariff threat and said Trump may attempt to impose them under an authority that is meant to apply only to allow sanctions on enemies, not allies such as Mexico.
But Pelosi would not commit to a legislative move to block the president because she doesn’t know what Trump is planning exactly. The White House has not yet settled on the legal path they will take to impose the tariffs.
The House could take up a resolution disapproving of Trump’s use of a national emergency statue if he takes that route. It requires approval from three-fourths of voting lawmakers in both chambers. Senate Republicans warned the White House Tuesday they oppose new tariffs on Mexico and may move to block the president with a veto-proof majority.
“I think the Senate probably has the votes to override,” Pelosi said. “But we haven’t seen anything yet. We haven’t seen anything that we would be overruling and then going to the next step.”
Pelosi said imposing tariffs “is not the way to treat a friend, and it’s not a way to deal with immigration. It’s not a way to deal with the humanitarian crisis at the border.”
