Mexico Rejects Trump’s $40 billion Wall

FEATURING LAURA CARLSEN – Donald Trump on Wednesday signed yet more executive orders, trying to fulfill, at least in name, some of the biggest campaign promises he made to his voters such as building a wall on the US border with Mexico. He specified, “a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous and impassable physical barrier.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan has estimated that the wall will cost $8-12 billion, but the MIT Tech Review puts the figure closer to $40 billion. Trump had promised his supporters that he would get Mexico to pay for the wall but Mexico’s current and former presidents have soundly rejected that. Now Trump claims US tax payers will foot the bill initially but eventually be reimbursed. How exactly that will happen, the President has not specified.

Meanwhile, border crossings by immigrants are at a 40-year low.

Laura Carlsen, Director of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy, a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus.