President Donald Trump threatened Friday to seal off the U.S.-Mexico border “entirely” if Congress does not approve billions of dollars in funding for a wall.
In a burst of early morning tweets, the president said the alternative to funding his hugely controversial wall project would be total separation from Mexico — including making U.S. car companies pull out their factories based on the other side of the frontier.
The threat yet again upped the ante in a political row that has led to a partial shutdown of the U.S. government and seems set to dominate the start to the third year of Trump’s presidency.
With the border shut, Trump said he would take U.S.-Mexican relations back to the days before the NAFTA agreement opened free trade across Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
That would “bring our car industry back into the United States where it belongs,” he said.
Trump did not make any mention of the new free trade agreement, known as the USMCA, which he only recently signed with the two neighboring countries to replace NAFTA and which he has repeatedly praised as a huge boost for American commerce.
Why This Matters
Experts are divided on solutions to policing the long, often inhospitable border separating the world’s biggest economy from the far poorer countries to its south.
Although there is a huge cross-border drug trade and immigrants often enter illegally, many do have genuine claims for asylum.
Central Americans also are already deeply integrated in the U.S. economy, often performing physically demanding, low-pay jobs in construction, agriculture, and other vital sectors.
Despite this, Trump has consistently painted the asylum seekers and economic migrants in outlandish terms, raising the specter of rapists, gang members and people with infectious diseases roaming freely across the border.
In November, Trump threatened to close the “whole border” with Mexico if “it gets to a level where we’re going to lose control or people are going to start getting hurt.”
Trump and media outlets friendly to his administration have latched particularly on to what has become known as the “caravans” — groups of several hundred or even more migrants who walk on epic treks across Central America and Mexico to try and reach the United States.
Although many in the “caravans” are families and people simply desperate for better, safer lives, Trump has portrayed the groups as organized attempts to invade the United States.
In one tweet Friday, Trump warned: “word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it.”
As a result, he said, “we will be cutting off all aid” to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, impoverished, often dangerous countries where American assistance aims to boost democracy, human rights, education and security.
What’s Next
Trump wants $5 billion in funding for a wall along the more than 2,000-mile border, which he says is currently too porous to stop illegal immigration and which he says has become a magnet for criminals, drugs and even terrorists.
Opponents — especially in the Democratic party but also some in Trump’s Republican party — say that a physical wall is impractical and that the idea is being used as a political tool to whip up xenophobia in Trump’s right-wing voter base.
Both sides have dug in. Democrats refuse to approve funding and the president — who has made hardline immigration polices a centerpiece of his presidency — has retaliated by refusing to sign off on a wider spending bill, leaving some 800,000 federal employees without pay.
Negotiations on lifting that partial government shutdown, perhaps by providing some border security funding, have sputtered out and no new debate is scheduled before next Wednesday.
More on the Subject
America’s border security head warned Wednesday officials were overwhelmed by the “enormous flow” of families crossing from Mexico, appealing for federal health care funding after the second child in a month died in custody.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said the agency was unable to cope with the thousands of arrivals, as most facilities were built decades ago for men arriving alone.