House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Ways & Means Committee member Rep. David Nunes (R-CA) last week voiced their support for President Trump’s intent to use the GOP tax plan’s border adjustment provision to collect revenue from countries with which the U.S. has a trade deficit, but clarified that while Trump has singled out Mexico as a target country, the GOP plan would tax imports from all countries equally.
[Daily News| January 29, 2017 |Inside US Trade]
“It’s an elegant solution if you want to get money coming in from Mexico to pay for anything – like a wall – because we have a trade deficit. With a border tax, as we talked about as part of our tax reform, you will get revenues coming in from Mexico,” Ryan said at a Jan. 27 event hosted by Politico.
“You’ll get revenues coming from every country we have a trade deficit with because imports exceed exports. That means revenues come into this country from that. And that actually goes to our tax plan. That’s what [the president] is basically making a point of,” Ryan added.
Trump on Jan. 26 said he would use the revenue from a border-adjustable tax applied to Mexican imports, as outlined in the House GOP blueprint for tax reform, to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We’re working on a tax reform bill that will reduce our trade deficits, increase American exports and will generate revenue from Mexico that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route,” Trump told the Republican caucus on Jan. 26 at a joint House and Senate retreat in Philadelphia.
