President Obama offered some sarcastic words of encouragement for Donald Trump on Tuesday, after the Republican frontrunner shared that he would force Mexico to pay for a border wall by cutting off money transfers from the U.S.
"Good luck with that," Obama said during his daily press briefing. "People expect the president of the United States and the elected officials in this country to treat these problems seriously, to put forward policies that have been examined, analyzed as effective, where unintended consequences are taken into account. They don't expect half-baked notions coming out of the White House. We can't afford that."
In a campaign memo, Trump said he would allow remittances to Mexico after the country made "a onetime payment of $5-10 billion," but Obama says that would have such a negative impact on the economy, Mexicans would come to the U.S. for jobs. The Mexican central bank reports that in 2015, nearly $25 billion was sent to back to the country from Mexicans living abroad.
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