US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the border wall between the United States and Mexico would be built anyway, no matter what kind of agreement on border security funding US Republican and Democratic congressmen reach
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th February, 2019) US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the border wall between the United States and Mexico would be built anyway, no matter what kind of agreement on border security funding US Republican and Democratic congressmen reach.
Earlier in the day, US Senator Richard Shelby said that the lawmakers had reached an agreement on border security that would avert another government shutdown after the one that ended recently and was initially triggered by a dispute between Trump and congressional Democrats over funding for building a wall on the US border with Mexico.
"We'll be building the wall anyway. They [congressmen] say that progress has been made ... I said: 'Wait a minute, I gotta take care of my people from Texas, I've got to go, I don't even wanna hear about it.' So I don't know what they mean [when they say] 'progress has been made,'" Trump said in an address for his supporters in El Paso, Texas, as broadcast by Fox news.
While Trump initially asked the Congress to authorize $5.7 billion to build the border wall, the lawmakers reportedly agreed to allocate around $1.4 billion.
After a record-long shutdown, which started in December, US lawmakers and Trump temporarily re-opened the Federal government for a three-week period until February 15 to negotiate a deal on border security. Failure to reach a compromise by Friday could trigger another government shutdown.
