Trump’s Mexico wall facing severe financial shortcomings: Report
Financial problems will prevent US President Donald Trump from honoring his campaign promise to "immediately" construct a wall along the US-Mexico border, says a report.
While still campaigning and in a later executive order issued at the beginning of the year, Trump promised to immediately start building the wall, which according to the White House, would be financed via already existing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funds.
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Based on a DHS document recently presented to congressional budget staff and seen by Reuters, the agency has only come up with $20 million which could be diverted towards the multi-billion-dollar wall.
The DHS stressed that it had only searched its $376 million budget for border security fencing, infrastructure and technology for the allocated amount, in order to circumvent congressional approval.
The document noted that the amount would only be sufficient for several wall prototype contracts and was nowhere close enough to the amount required for building the promised wall.
According to previous reports, the full walling off of the US’ southern border will cost around $21.6 billion or $17.8 million for each mile of wall.
Trump claims that he will call on Congress to cover the wall’s budget deficit, and that he will pressure Mexico to pay back the amount in the future.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has estimated that the border barrier will cost between $12 billion and $15 billion, part of which he said would be included in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
So far some 265 businesses have expressed interest to develop prototypes, but biding for contracts will start on March 6.
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