Deal or no deal, Mr President?

TRUMP: UNDECIDED ABOUT AGREEMENT ON BORDER WALL

Regardless of Wall money, it is being built as we speak, US leader tweets.

Washington

President Donald Trump was unhappy with a deal struck by congressional negotiators on border security that denied him funds for his promised US-Mexican border wall, but did not reject it outright as fellow Republicans urged his support.

Trump’s demand in December for $5.7 billion (R79 billion) from Congress to help build a wall on the southern border triggered a 35-day closure of about a quarter of the federal government. But he remains undecided whether he will support the agreement reached on Monday night that includes $1.37 billion for border fencing.

Nevertheless, Trump said he did not expect another shutdown, while insisting he could find a way to bypass Congress and build a wall without lawmakers.

Trump posted on Twitter he had been briefed by Republican Senator Richard Shelby and was reviewing the measure.

The Republican president repeated his insistence that if Congress did not provide the funding, he would press forward with building a wall, writing: “Regardless of Wall money, it is being built as we speak!”

White House aides are considering having Trump sign the compromise deal, but also try to move money that has already been allocated for other programmes to instead build the wall, one official said. Trump may need approval from Democrats in the House to be able to do so.

Funding for the department of homeland security, the justice department and a host of other agencies is due to end on Saturday, after the expiration of a stopgap measure that ended the longest federal shutdown in US history. Monday’s tentative funding agreement would keep the government open until September 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

“I have to study it. I’m not happy about it,” Trump told reporters about the deal, which would need to be passed by the Democratic-led House of Representatives and Republican-controlled Senate and signed by him.

Congressional Republicans have shown little appetite for another shutdown after taking heavy criticism over the prior one. “I hope he’ll decide to sign it,” Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy also touted the deal. – Reuters