Feed a cold, starve a subversive. Seems like good advice, both medically and politically.
Last month, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum made a little-noticed comment about a facet of the House reconciliation package that didn't draw much attention either. For the first time, House Republicans proposed and passed a tax on remittances to Mexico, the way that Mexican nationals in the US send money to relatives south of the border. The 3.5% tax rate helped offset some projected spending in the bill, and also would act as a slight deterrent to illegal immigration, maybe. (Color me skeptical on that point.)
Nevertheless, Sheinbaum excoriated Congress over the new tax and insisted that Mexico would resist that new policy. "If necessary, we'll mobilize," Sheinbaum said at the time, without making clear what she meant by mobilize.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum calls for people to “mobilize” against taxes for remittances. In 2024, Mexico received a record $64.7 billion in remittances from the United States.pic.twitter.com/rlYJqBJGuU
— Wid Lyman (@Wid_Lyman) June 8, 2025
With riots underway in Los Angeles under the banner of Mexican flags, Republicans in Congress now think Sheinbaum had a specific meaning in mind. And now they're reconsidering the 3.5% rate as rookie numbers that they have to pump up:
“If necessary, we’ll mobilize. We don’t want taxes on remittances from our fellow countrymen. From the US to Mexico,” Sheinbaum warned in the clip.
It is not entirely clear what she meant by “mobilize.”
But her salvo was enough to prompt several Republican lawmakers to promptly call on the Senate to raise the proposed tax on remittances.
“The House’s Big Beautiful Bill addressed the urgent need for a remittance tax. But we can go further. I’m introducing legislation to quadruple the proposed remittance tax — from 3.5% to 15%,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) seethed on X.
“America is not the world’s piggy bank. And we don’t take kindly to threats.”
This is not a piddling issue to Mexico. In 2023, Mexico received $63.3 billion in remittances from the US, then a record. Remittances in 2023 accounted for 3.5% of Mexico's $1.79 trillion GDP that year, in fact. Mexico got $59.5 billion in the first eleven months of 2024, a 2.9% increase from the year before, likely on the way to a new record. The record levels of remittances probably relate to the vast expansion of illegal border crossings in 2021-2025, which is one reason why Sheinbaum opposes the new policies by Donald Trump to shut down the border and enforce immigration laws.
The new remittance tax is going to create problems for Sheinbaum. Even at 3.5%, the tax would shave off $2.2 billion at the 2023 level of remittances. That will have some small impact on the Mexican economy, but a 15% tax rate pushes the haircut to $9.5 billion. That level of taxation might create more disincentives for illegal immigration and push some here toward self-deportation, but the disincentives of the raids and the suddenly firm effort at the Department of Homeland Security to conduct large-scale deportations will still be the major factor.
That may not be the only impact that these taxes have, though. One has to wonder just how much of this money goes to agitators and agitator groups currently funding and directing the violence on the streets of Los Angeles. In fact, one has to wonder just how much Sheinbaum and the Mexican government has "mobilized" these street actions in response to ICE enforcing American immigration laws and rounding up criminal illegals.
If that's the case, then even 15% is a rookie number in need of some pumping up. Again using 2023 numbers, a remittance tax of 25% would take nearly a full point off of Mexico's annual GDP, which would prove a strong disincentive to any further talk of "mobilization" by Sheinbaum. Mexico could retaliate by hiking fees on remittances in the other direction, but that only amounts to less than two billion dollars annually. While other countries benefit from US-originated remittances, the US only receives $7.4 billion in 2023 from all remittance sources, far below the $81.6 billion that got sent out of the US in the same year.
Charlie Kirk blasted Sheinbaum over her remarks, and wondered whether "Mexico and the drug cartels have declared war" on the US. He has the translation of Sheinbaum's remarks, and then explains how the remittances benefit those cartels:
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is a bigger threat to America than Vladimir Putin. pic.twitter.com/CjoAT23ukC
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 9, 2025
I'm not sure it goes that far, but Sheinbaum's arrogance goes far enough anyway. It's time to stop being nice to Mexico's socialists and to start reminding them of the consequences for interference in our affairs. Charlie's 30% tax rate sounds like a good starting point for teaching that lesson.
