following president trump sus tending tariffs after reaching a deal with mexico on immigration late last night. in a series of tweets this morning, however, he defended his last-minute decision not to implement tariffs while also being optimistic about mexico s efforts to curtail illegal immigration. okay, so the deal comes after the president received strong pushback from democrats and republicans who warned that the threats to impose tariffs on all goods imported from mexico would hurt the u.s. economic growth. and joining me now is nbc s mike vick aria at the white house and chief washington correspondent john harwood. we start with mike. give us a play-by-play of what this deal means? you know, good afternoon to you, kendis. those tariffs would have had to impose the prese the tariff on mexican goods by 5%. this wasn t about trade, this was an effort, admittedly an
it is a complicated accounting thing that has to do with import and exports. or even worse. it is more technical than we have time to get in to as well. it would not befall the mexican people. i don t think any of them understood that. i suspect people in trump world think if you put a tariff on mexican goods, mexicans pay the tariff. it is useful to distinguish between the politics and policy. this has been a chaotic week with daily the washington post fact checker said today every day of his first week president trump has expressed something that is completely not true. i think we, as journalists, should be cautious after what happened last year in how this will play out politically with voters. at the end of the day people watching msnbc or washington
we want to ensure that we are at admitting into the country of the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. trump also signed an executive memorandum which is not as legally binding as an executive order, putting a motion his plan to build up the nation s military. and one day after calling off their meeting scheduled for next week, president trump and mexican president enrique pena nieto spoke on the phone for one hour. the white house says the two leaders had a constructive and productive conversation talking about the importance of the friendship between the two nations and a need for the two nations to work together to stop drug cartels, drug trafficking, and illegal guns and arms sales. they also acknowledged the two side differences concerning the wall and who will pay for it. trump later reiterated he has not ruled out imposing an import tax on mexican goods. something the editorial board of
presidency that a formal position will be put out pi the white house that they have to abandon within minutes, hours. it wasn t clear they were talking about a mexico specific tariff. it sounded like pfizer was alluding to a border tax that would befall mexican imports. it is a complicated accounting thing that has to do with import and exports. or even worse. it is more technical than we have time to get in to as well. it would not befall the mexican people. i don t think any of them understood that. i suspect people in trump world think if you put a tariff on mexican goods, mexicans pay the tariff. it is useful to distinguish between the politics and policy. this has been a chaotic week with daily the washington post fact checker said today every day of his first week president trump has expressed something that is completely not true. i think we, as journalists, should be cautious after what happened last year in how this will play out politically with voters.
has said and feel disrespected which is why mexican president nieto even if he wanted to come to washington couldn t. it would have destroyed his political career. how you get yourself past that to working out a deal that both sides can live with and remember, i mean, this is high stakes involved. we have billions of dollars of trade with mexico. we start putting taxes, 20% taxes was mentioned yesterday, on mexican goods, that will get passed on to american consumers in the stores, conversely if they start putting taxes on u.s. imports into mexico, there are millions of jobs in this country that depend on trade with mexico. what happens to them? so this is a lot more than rhetoric when you are the president dealing with another country and its feelings and economic interests. shannon: quickly, chris, what do you make of this theme, this discussion about the u.s. being less involved with funding and being involved with international organizations that we ve been a part of for a long t