The Trump Wall Tax: an exercise in critical thinking

Abstract

A series of discovery-based critical thinking exercises are presented that explore potential unanticipated consequences that might result from Trump's Wall Tax, a tax imposed on Mexican imports to pay for construction of a physical barrier between nations. These exercises include the distribution of the tax between nations, impacts on the Mexican labour force and impacts on the US labour force. It is discovered that if both nations would pay the tax, employment and wages might fall in Mexico thereby increasing pressure for illegal immigration and that employment and wages in the USA may fall as well. These exercises create the context to integrate multiple paradigms to further explore this controversial issue.