Facing many challenges, Trump announces construction of border wall will begin in ‘months’
< < Go Back
President Donald Trump is following through with one of the first pledges he made a year and a half ago when he announced his long-shot bid for the White House — directing federal resources toward building a wall along the southern border.
But the reality of building the wall could be more difficult than the rallying cries would suggest. The length of the wall, when construction will begin, how much it will cost and who will pay for it remain fundamental questions.
There is also ongoing debate about the feasibility of the structure and the need for it in the first place.
Trump told ABC News that construction of the wall would begin in months.
“As soon as we can, as soon as we can physically do it,” he said. “I would say in months, yeah. I would say in months — certainly planning is starting immediately.”
When pressed on funding for the wall, Trump reiterated that Mexico would pay for it, although he did not provide any specific plan of how to accomplish that, saying that it may come in the form of a reimbursement.
“Ultimately, it will come out of what’s happening with Mexico … and we will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico, which I’ve always said,” Trump said.
Since he first made the pledge, walling off our neighbors to the south became an oft-repeated promise and rallying cry, both for the candidate and his supporters. Chants of “build that wall” thundered through arenas and convention halls. In at least one instance, Trump himself led the cheer. Building “an impenetrable physical wall on the southern border, on day one” is listed as item No. 1 on his “10 Point Plan to Put America First.”
Trump said that U.S. tax dollars would be used to start the construction.
“All it is, is we’ll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico,” he said. “I’m just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form. What I’m doing is good for the United States. It’s also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico,” the president told ABC News.
Text of Trump’s executive order on border security
More From Fox4News-Kansas City: