Trump’s pledge to make Mexico pay for border wall may cost US taxpayers billions of dollars or cause government shutdown
WASHINGTON – It was one of Donald Trump’s most-repeated campaign promises: Not only would he build a wall along the U.S. southern border – a “big, beautiful wall,” he boasted – he’d make Mexico pay for it.
That was then.
Now, as president, Trump is demanding that Congress give him $5 billion as a down payment on the wall and threatening to shut down the government if he doesn’t get it.
“I am proud to shut down the government for border security,” he declared Tuesday during a finger-pointing, arm-waving, on-camera squabble with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in the Oval Office.
Whether Trump was bluffing or not, the battle over border funding has quickly become the major obstacle to getting a spending bill through Congress before next week’s deadline. A short-term spending bill expires at midnight Dec. 21, and parts of the government will run out of money and will shut down unless lawmakers reach a consensus on a funding plan.
A government shutdown seems even more likely after Tuesday’s Oval Office spectacle. Democrats accused Trump of throwing a made-for-television temper tantrum, but vowed they have no intention of putting up $5 billion for a border wall.
Trump’s insistence that Congress give him $5 billion to help pay for the wall is a departure from his insistence throughout the 2016 presidential campaign – and even into his presidency – that Mexico would bear the cost.
“We all knew that wasn’t going to happen, but that was the promise,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, told reporters on Tuesday. “This notion that he’s having to fulfill his promise to get this amount of funding for a wall structure – it’s not a campaign promise that’s being kept there, it’s one that’s being broken.”
As a candidate, Trump “had a nasty habit of making a lot of fast promises – sweeping, huge, enormous false promises,” said Jesse Lee, spokesman for the political arm of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
In this case, “it’s not just that it was broken promises – it was kind of a lie to begin with,” Lee said.
Trump insisted Thursday morning that Mexico will pay for the wall through the new U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The trade deal, which still requires approval of Congress, is a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.
"I often stated, 'One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall,'" he wrote on Twitter. "This has never changed. Our new deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!"
I often stated, “One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall.” This has never changed. Our new deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2018
On the day he launched his campaign for president, Trump vowed he would build a wall along the border with Mexico and that Mexicans, not Americans, would foot the bill.
“Nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively,” he told supporters during his campaign kick-off speech at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”
Though he offered few details about how he’d force Mexico to pay for the wall, Trump made the same promise again and again.
“Mexico is going to pay – they know it – Mexico is going to pay for the wall, and that’s an easy one,” he told a crowd in Portland, Maine, on Aug. 4, 2016.
“Mexico will pay for the wall, OK, believe me, they will pay for the wall,” he promised at a campaign rally in Jacksonville, Florida, on Nov. 3, 2016, just five days before the election.
Trump continued to make the same pledge even after he became president, insisting as recently as last May 29 at an event in Nashville that Mexico is “going to pay for the wall, and they’re going to enjoy it.”
No matter what Trump says, Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, said Arturo Sarukhan, who served six years as Mexico’s ambassador to the United States.
“Mexico and the U.S. have done – and can do – great things together, but the one thing Mexico will not be doing with the U.S. is building a wall along our common border,” Sarukhan said. “It’s a 1st century solution to 21st century challenges.”
Trump’s Oval Office spat with Pelosi and Schumer on Tuesday barely registered in Mexico, Sarukhan said, because “at this stage, Mexicans have become increasingly Teflon-coated to Trump's harangues that Mexico will pay for the wall.”
Trump keeps pushing the myth that Mexico will pay because he knows that failing to deliver on that promise would be a devastating political blow given the importance that his base places on immigration, Lee said.
“That’s why you see him going further and further down this desperate rabbit hole to try to salvage some semblance of ‘I kept that promise,’” Lee said.
But, “he set himself up for failure,” Lee said. “What his base liked about him was the idea that he was a winner. And he’s going to be a big loser on this.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump’s pledge to make Mexico pay for border wall may cost US taxpayers billions of dollars or cause government shutdown
