Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., responded that if Mexico is truly funding the wall, Congress doesn’t need to appropriate money for it.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that “money we save” from a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada would make good on his long-standing promise to have Mexico pay for a new southern border wall.
Trump’s highly questionable assertion, in a morning tweet, comes as he is lobbying Congress for $5 billion to help fund construction of the wall and threatening a partial government shutdown if he does not get his way.
In recent days, as the debate over the wall has come to the fore, Trump has faced renewed criticism for appearing to have abandoned his campaign pledge to make Mexico pay for it.
“I often stated, ‘One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall,’” Trump wrote on Twitter. “This has never changed. Our new deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!”
Mexican officials have said there was no discussion in the trade-deal negotiations of mechanisms under which Mexico would pay for the wall.
And on Thursday, both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., ridiculed Trump for his assertion.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Pelosi told reporters at a news conference. “Maybe he doesn’t understand how a trade agreement works.… I think the Oval Office is an evidence-free zone.”
Pelosi, who is likely to become House speaker in January, also pointed out that Congress has yet to ratify Trump’s new trade deal.
