TRUMP RENEWS THREAT TO DECLARE US EMERGENCY

▶ As government shutdown continues, US President says he will use his executive powers to bypass Democrats’ opposition to Mexico border wall

US President Donald Trump yesterday renewed his threat to declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress and build a wall on the Mexican border, depending on what happened in talks to end a partial government shutdown now in its third week.

Mr Trump made the threat before heading to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for “meetings on border security and many other topics” with senior White House staff.

Democrats have already threatened a legal challenge if Mr Trump tries to invoke a national emergency.

“He’ll face a challenge, I’m sure,” Democratic senator Dick Durbin said.

Republican senator Richard Shelby said on Fox News that Mr Trump has some “inherent powers” to bypass Congress, but that border funding must be done the right way, through legislation.

A delegation of top White House aides led by Vice President Mike Pence was due to meet congressional staff yesterday after talks on Saturday failed to end in a deal.

Mr Trump said on Twitter that “not much headway” was made on Saturday and that the next meeting was unlikely to produce results either.

“I think you’re going to have some very serious talks Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” Mr Trump said. “We have to have border security.”

On Friday, the US leader said he could declare a national emergency to get around legislators and build the wall, although budget experts said Congress would still need to allocate the funds.

“Whatever action he takes will certainly be lawful and we’re looking at every option we can,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

Washington Democrat Adam Smith, the incoming chairman of the House armed services committee, said Mr Trump had the authority to declare an emergency and have the US military build the wall.

But such an action would probably be challenged and would be “a bad use of defence spending”, Mr Smith said.

“In this case, I think the president would be wide open to a court challenge saying, ‘Where is the emergency?’” Mr Smith told ABC’s This Week programme yesterday.

Mr Trump and the Democrats are at an impasse over the president’s demands for $5.6 billion (Dh20.56bn) to build the wall.

Although the Democrats have offered some funding for border security, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called a wall “immoral”.

Mr Trump is willing to rule out concrete for a wall if that helps to reach a deal with Democrats, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said.

“If he has to give up a concrete wall, replace it with a steel fence in order to do that so that Democrats can say, ‘See? He’s not building a wall any more,’ that should help us move in the right direction,” Mr Mulvaney said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Democrats insist that Mr Trump supports reopening the government while the negotiations on the border wall continue.

On Saturday they asked for a formal budget justification for the administration’s position to determine what the White House’s request on a border wall is.

But the White House and Democratic negotiators cannot even agree on “basic facts”, and Democrats are stalling because they think Mr Trump is losing the battle over public opinion, Mr Mulvaney said yesterday.

“The Democrats, for better or worse, think they are winning this battle politically,” Mr Mulvaney said.

Meanwhile, the shutdown is having wide-reaching effects. Airlines cannot get permission to add new planes to their fleets, mortgage lenders cannot verify borrowers’ incomes and the Food and Drug Administration cannot accept many new drug applications.

Mr Trump was tweeting about the wall yesterday, quoting past comments in support of a barrier by former president Barack Obama, whose name he misspelled, and Hillary Clinton and insisting the wall will end illegal border crossings and crime.

“The only reason they do not want to build a wall is that walls work,” Mr Trump tweeted.