Big chunk of funding diverted from Guam

HONOLULU >> President Donald Trump is raising a large chunk of the money for his border wall with Mexico by deferring several military construction projects slated for Guam, a strategic hub for U.S. forces in the Pacific.

This may disrupt plans to move Marines to Guam from Japan and to modernize munitions storage for the Air Force.

About 7% of the funds for the $3.6 billion wall are being diverted from eight projects in the U.S. territory, a key spot in the U.S. military’s efforts to deter North Korea and counter China’s growing military.

The administration has vowed it’s only delaying the spending, not canceling it. But Democrats in Congress, outraged over Trump’s use of an emergency order for the wall, have promised they won’t approve money to revive the projects.

“The fact is, by literally taking that money after it had been put in place and using it for something else, you now put those projects in jeopardy,” said Carl Baker, executive director of Pacific Forum, a Honolulubased foreign policy think tank.

The Senate on Wednesday passed a measure blocking Trump from raiding the military construction budget for the wall. The Democratic-controlled House is likely to pass the bill, but Trump is expected to veto it as he did with an identical measure in March.

The tiny island of Guam holds a naval base with fast attack submarines and an Air Force base with bombers that rotate in from the mainland.

The U.S. currently plans to start moving 5,000 Marines there from Okinawa in southern Japan around 2025.

This is part of a decadeslong effort by Tokyo and Washington to relieve the congested Japanese island’s burden of hosting half the U.S. forces stationed in Japan. The total cost of relocating the Marines is $8.7 billion, of which Japan is paying $3.1 billion.