Trump eyes military paying for wall
UNITED STATES: President Donald Trump, who repeatedly insisted during the 2016 election campaign that Mexico would pay for a wall along America’s southern border, is privately pushing the US military to fund construction of his signature project.
Trump has told advisers he was spurned in a large spending bill last week when lawmakers appropriated only US$1.6 billion for the wall. He has suggested to Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and congressional leaders that the Pentagon could fund the sprawling project, citing a ‘‘national security’’ risk.
After floating the notion to several advisers last week, Trump told House Speaker Paul Ryan that the military should pay for the wall, according to three people familiar with the meeting last Thursday. Ryan offered little reaction to the idea, the sources said, but senior Capitol Hill officials said it was an unlikely prospect.
Trump’s pursuit of defence dollars to finance the wall underscores his determination to fulfil a campaign promise and build the barrier despite resistance in the Republican-led Congress. The administration’s lastminute negotiations with lawmakers to secure billions more for the wall failed, and Trump grudgingly signed the spending bill after a short-lived veto threat.
In another interaction with senior aides last week, Trump noted that the Defence Department was getting so much money as part of the spending bill that the Pentagon could surely afford the border wall, two White House officials said. The Pentagon received about US$700b in the spending package, which Trump repeatedly lauded as ‘‘historic’’.
Meanwhile, the US$1.6b in the bill for some fencing and levees on the border not only fell far short of the US$25b that Trump was seeking, but it came with tight restrictions on how the money could be spent.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders deflected a question yesterday about money dedicated to the military being used to fund construction of the wall. ‘‘I can’t get into the specifics of that at this point, but I can tell you that the continuation of building the wall is ongoing, and we’re going to continue moving forward in that process,’’ she said.
‘‘Build WALL through M!’’ Trump recently wrote on Twitter. He retweeted those words yesterday, noting that ‘‘our Military is again rich’’. Two advisers said ‘‘M’’ stood for ‘‘military’’.
The president had suggested to Mattis that his department, instead of the Department of Homeland Security, could fund the construction, two Trump advisers said. But the military is not likely to fund the wall, according to White House and Defence Department officials.
The Pentagon has plenty of money, but redirecting it for a wall would require votes in Congress that the president does not seem to have. Taking money from the current 2018 budget for the wall would require an act of Congress, said a senior Pentagon official.
To find the money in the 2019 defence budget, Trump would have to submit a budget amendment that would require 60 votes in the Senate, the official said.
Democrats in Congress would probably chafe at military spending going to the construction of a border wall, and military officials may also blanch, White House advisers said.
Defence hawks in the Republican ranks would balk at taking money now dedicated to the Pentagon for aircraft, weapons and improvements to the armed forces’ readiness and instead steering it towards construction of the wall.
After a recent trip to see prototypes of the wall in California, Trump had grown more animated by the issue, advisers said.
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