Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has made what would seem to be, at first glance, off-the-wall statements that upon further analysis turned out to be solid policy positions, supported by the Constitution and even supported by previous Democrat administrations.  He has turned this ability into an art form.

Nowhere is this more apparent than his position on building a wall between the United States and Mexico.  When Trump first articulated his position – a border wall with Mexico, and making Mexico pay for it – I could almost hear the derision in the words of various pundits and politicos.  Although most thinking people readily saw how easy it would be for Trump to get Mexico to pay for the wall, validation of his position now comes from an unexpected direction.

In Thursday's edition of the Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard quotes a former foreign secretary of Mexico, Jorge Castañeda:

"[H]e really wants Mexicans to pay for the wall, he has many ways of getting many Mexicans to pay for the wall, increasing the fee for visas ... increasing the toll on the bridges ... taxing remittances," he said at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

What's more, he said that the wall is an extension of programs first put into place by former President Bill Clinton and extended under former President George W. Bush and President Obama.

Mr. Bedard delves into several immigration sub-issues with Secretary Castañeda, from deporting illegals to making Mexico take back its citizens.  In each of these, Castañeda appeared to believe that Trump's positions on immigration are not braggadocio, but rather eminently feasible and tenable. 

During the primary season, I supported other candidates.  When Trump won the nomination, I somewhat reluctantly shifted my support to him, being more anti-Clinton than pro-Trump.  The more I have watched him, the more apparent it has become that he is playing three-dimensional chess, while the media and political elites are still reading the instructions on the outside of the box the checkers came in.  "We're gonna build a wall and make Mexico pay for it" is just one more example of this.

Mike Ford is a sometime contributor to American Thinker, frequently edited by his lovely bride who is a retired high school principal.