I wasn’t suggesting we could pay off the debt with the money. Just interested in seeing how long it would take to cover the cost of the wall. Two or three months by my estimate. And, yes I get that the more important issue is how effective this will be at getting Mexico to stop the illegals. But paying for the wall would be a nice bonus.
And, I disagree that these tariffs will have no effect on Mexico’s behavior, especially once/if they go up to the higher percentages. Five billion a month in tariffs (the amount they will pay once/if the tariffs rise to 25%) is not insignificant when you consider the effect it has cumulatively on corporate profits. And that’s the main point of the tariffs - not to pay off the deficit, but to cause pain to companies that export from Mexico to U.S. so that they will either pressure the Mexican government to stop the illegals, or will consider shifting their production back to the U.S., or both.
Here are the figures. $135 = amount imported from Mexico per year. 5% = amount of tariff. Therefore for the amount collected is 5% of $135B = $6.75B Which is not enough for the wall.