US President Donald Trump today threatened to close “completely” the border with Mexico if the Democrats do not include a budget line in the budget to finance their wall, a disagreement that has caused the partial closure of the Administration.
“We will be forced to close the southern border completely if the obstructionist democrats do not give us the money to finish the wall and also to change our ridiculous immigration laws that subject our country,” said Trump on his Twitter account.
The administrative closure affects 25% of government agencies and began with disagreements over the financing of the wall, one of Trump’s main electoral promises.
The president considered that closing the border would be a “lucrative operation” because, in his opinion, the US loses money by trading with Mexico through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in force since 1994 and which will be replaced by a new agreement.
The new pact, baptized T-MEC, was signed in October by Trump, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and the then Mexican President, Enrique Peña Nieto; but it must still be ratified by the Congresses of the three countries to take effect.
“The US loses so much money in trade with Mexico under the NAFTA – the English-language NAFTA – more than 75,000 million dollars a year (not including money in drugs, which would be many times more than that amount), because what I would consider the closing of the border to be a ‘lucrative operation,’ “Trump said.
“We will build a wall or close the border, we will bring our automobile industry back to the US where it belongs, we will return to pre-NAFTA, before many of our companies and jobs were sent so foolishly to Mexico,” he added.
The closure of the Administration will probably continue until 2019 due to the difficulty of the White House and the Democratic opposition reaching an agreement.
The White House has asked Congress to include a $ 5,000 million item for the border barrier; but the democrats refuse and, for the moment, they are only willing to allocate 1,300 million to border security, but with restrictions that prevent the construction of the wall.
This is the third closure Trump faces since he came to power in early 2017. The first came in January of this year, coinciding with his first anniversary at the White House, and lasted for three days; while the second was in February and lasted only a few hours. (EFE) .-
