What is the condition of the wall on the border between the USA and Mexico?

“Mexico is paying for the wall through the new trade agreement (USMCA). Most of the wall has already been completely renovated or built. We have done a great job,” US President Donald Trump said on January 2.

Is this true?

Statement: Most of the barrier wall along the US-Mexico border has either been built or is being modernized. Mexico allegedly pays for it through a new trade agreement with the United States and Canada.

The facts: Border authorities claim that work has begun to improve the infrastructure of border security. The money received so far is largely related to already existing barrier constructions.

US Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada (USMCA) signed by the presidents of the three countries, but not yet ratified, including by the US Congress (prior to ratification, the old NAFTA agreement is in effect), and it is not clear how this will directly lead to the receipt of income from Mexico for the wall.

Desires and reality

For this, he needs the support of the congress, but he is faced with a serious opposition. The Democratic Party says it does not intend to fund such a wall.

But Trump himself claims that significant progress has already been made in implementing this project. He tweeted that most of the wall had already been upgraded or built.

So what was built, and does Mexico pay for it?

Barrier wall

The erection of this wall was one of the key campaign promises of Donald Trump.

The White House argues that the wall is necessary in order to prevent illegal migrants and drugs from entering the country.

The border between the United States and Mexico stretches for 3145 kilometers. More than a thousand kilometers have already been fenced - in areas bordering the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and partly on the border with Texas.

According to documents obtained by CNN in early 2018, administration officials told Congress that building Trump's wall would mean building a barrier along approximately 1400 kilometers, as well as rebuilding the barrier in areas totaling about 1900 kilometers.

It needs 33 billion dollars.

Why does Trump raise this question again?

Trump is demanding billions of dollars from 5 to build a wall, but the House of Representatives refuses to do so.

Control of the House of Representatives has passed into the hands of the Democratic Party, which declares that it will not allocate a single cent for the construction of the wall.

Instead, Democrats are proposing to allocate 1,3 billion dollars to strengthen border security. This money should be spent on improving controls at the border and building fences, but not walls.

Financing of cross-border security is included in the general budget that the congress is trying to approve. Since no budget agreement was reached, part of the federal government temporarily stopped working from December 22.

Trump himself states that will not sign budget documents, if they do not provide funding for the construction of the barrier wall.

At the end of 2018, the House of Representatives, then under Republican control, approved a bill meeting the requirements of the president, but it was not approved by the Senate.

What has been built along the border?

In January, 2018, President Trump asked Congress to allocate 18 billion dollars over the next 10 years to the first phase of the border wall, but the bill was not approved.

It is estimated that the construction of the wall will cost 12-40 billion dollars.

In March, 2018, Donald Trump enlisted the support of Congress to spend 1,6 billion dollars to work to strengthen the border.

The US Customs and Border Service states that this amount allows you to build a wall on an area approximately 160 km long.

Since the Customs and Border Guard Service reported, they replaced the concrete wall approximately 22 kilometers of metal barriers in the San Diego area, erected more than three kilometers of walls in California and more than 30 kilometers in New Mexico.

But funding approved by the congress provides only for the construction and replacement of existing barriers, as well as the improvement of border security technologies, and only on those areas where such budget expenditures were approved in the past.

Accordingly, the customs and border guard service cannot spend the funding allocated to it for the construction of new walls, as required by the president.

On the website of the customs and border services, you can see the various prototypes of the wall design.

Will Mexico pay for it?

Donald Trump initially stated that Mexico would pay the most direct way to build its wall. But over the past few months he has significantly changed his position.

“I will build a great wall, no one builds walls better than me, believe me, I build them cheap,” Trump said during the campaign. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border.” And I'll make Mexico pay for this wall."

But by the end of 2018, Trump began to say that building a wall would simply pay off.

“Let someone explain to the Democrats (we need their votes) that our country spends $250 billion a year fighting illegal immigration, not to mention the terrible influx of drugs. A better security system, including a wall, would cost 25 billion. This will pay for itself in two months,” the president wrote on Twitter.

He now says Mexico is "paying for the wall" as a result of the recently negotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact.

But the president did not explain the mechanism of such financing. Moreover, the treaty itself has not yet entered into force, it has not been ratified by the US Congress.

President Trump probably believes that as a result of the contract, the US trade deficit in trade with Mexico will decrease, which will increase US budget revenues, which, in turn, will finance the construction of the wall, suggests American economist Andrew Hunter from Capital Economics.

“However, there is little direct connection between the trade deficit and the government budget,” Hunter says.

Perhaps the new treaty will increase the volume of trade between both countries, which, in turn, will increase revenues to the treasury.

But, as Andrew Hunter points out, "the changes to the trade agreement are minor and unlikely to have a major impact on the economy."

President Trump also said he could use the Patriot Act to stop migrants from transferring money from the United States to Mexico.

According to Banco de Mexico, these transfers reach 25 billion dollars a year. But, as analysts say, such a ban will be extremely difficult to organize in practice, in addition, it can turn into lawsuits.

For Trump, this plan is a way to influence Mexico to force it to pay for the wall, but Mexico categorically refuses to do this.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Trump: Shtadaun will continue until the issue of wall financing is resolved

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