President Trump’s threat to shut down the 2,000-mile-long southern border would disrupt hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade and an average of $821 million each day, according to numbers Customs and Border Protection provided to the Washington Examiner.
A total of $300 billion in imports — about $821 million per day — flowed from Mexico into the U.S. in fiscal year 2017, which ended Sept. 2017. That trade would either stop or have to be rerouted to the U.S. by other means.
CBP, as the U.S. government’s second-highest revenue generator, would cease to collect duties, taxes, and other fees on those imports if the border were closed down, a move Trump has threatened in the face of several waves of migrants looking to seek asylum via Mexico.
In 2017, CBP raked in $546 million for the federal government by processing imports through the southern border.
CBP inspects all imported trade at airports, land ports and sea ports. In fiscal year 2017, the Department of Homeland Security agency processed a total of almost $2.4 trillion worth of trade, or about $11 billion per day, according to its annual report.
In October, a CBP official told the Examiner that about $1.6 billion in goods were processed at the northern border daily in 2017 — about $580 billion annually, or nearly twice as much trade seen at the southern border.
A total 24 ports of entry exist along the four southern border states and Mexico.
Following a violent clash between caravan migrants and federal law enforcement between Tijuana and San Diego, Calif., last month, Trump called for Mexican authorities to send back home the roughly 10,000 migrants who traveled to northern Mexico as part of caravans. He threatened to close the border if Mexico did not cooperate with his demand.
“Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!” Trump wrote on Twitter. He has reiterated that threat several times since then, including most recently on Monday.
To date, the Mexican government has only announced plans to deport 98 “foreigners” who were involved in the November incident at the border.
The shutdown along the 2,000-mile southern border would not affect its 23,000 staff (not including U.S. Border Patrol who man land between ports), who the CBP spokesman said “would still be working,” albeit in different capacities than normal. The official said the agency does not get into “hypotheticals” when asked what might happen if the border closed temporarily.
This story was corrected to note the amount of trade that would be disrupted if the southern border were shut down amounts to more than $800 million per day, not $800,000.
