In recent memory, fewer phrases have been more significant, controversial and memorable than many of President Donald J. Trump\u2019s campaign slogans. These include such phrases \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d and \u201cBuild the wall.\u201d On both sides of the political spectrum, conservative or liberal, you will be hard pressed to find an individual without at least some form of an opinion on Trump\u2019s presidency or the proposed border wall. Regardless of one\u2019s support or resistance to the long-promised wall, it is hard to deny that the wall is not only a dividing barrier physically, but one that also serves to broaden the gap between prevalent political ideologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMexico will pay for the wall!\u201d tweeted then Republican Presidential Nominee Trump on Sept. 1, 2016. This was a bold claim that has since stuck and become a rallying cry for many of his dedicated supporters. However, as nearly anyone with at least a passing knowledge of politics will tell you, very rarely will things go as planned. In response to Trump\u2019s promises, Mexico has repeatedly denied paying for the proposed wall, according to Politico<\/em>. \u201cIt is evident that we have some differences with the new government of the United States, like the topic of the wall, that Mexico of course will not pay,\u201d then President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto was quoted as saying during a press conference in early 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does this mean for the United States and dreams of a\nborder wall? Some, including Trump himself over Twitter, have cited the United\nStates-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) signed into law on Nov. 30, 2018, which\nrestructures the former North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as a\nsolution. However, this doesn\u2019t include any provisions about allocating funds\nfrom Mexico directly to any wall-building projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Mexico isn\u2019t paying for the wall, then who is? Trump\u2019s\nhopes for the completion of the wall through USMCA are predicated on the idea\nthat under the new trade act, economic activity in the United States will be\nstimulated, bringing in larger amounts of tax revenue which would allow the\ngovernment to fund the wall in its entirety. The problem for Trump\u2019s promises\nis that this money isn\u2019t coming directly from Mexico, nor has the Mexican\ngovernment agreed to any provisions under USMCA that would filter Mexican\nfunding directly into the border wall project, according to The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liberty Vittert, a statistician published by Fox News,<\/em> has estimated the border wall\nproject at costing approximately $25 billion, a far cry from the $20.6 million\ncollected by the GoFundMe<\/em> donation\npool titled \u201cWe the People Will Build the Wall.\u201d Such an astronomically high\nnumber seems almost incomprehensible, and American taxpayers will ultimately\nshoulder the financial burden, sharing many similarities with the ambitious GoFundMe<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a fraction of $25 billion, America can invest in\neducation reform that allows public school teachers the material and equipment\nneeded to create safe, effective learning environments for children. We can\nrepair essential infrastructure including roads and piping systems to avoid a\nrepeat of Flint, Michigan\u2019s ongoing water crisis because of aging lead water\npipes. It is ultimately unclear then, the true value of a new wall on the\nsouthern border, when the cracks are beginning to show in our own walls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In recent memory, fewer phrases have been more significant, controversial and memorable than many of President Donald J. Trump\u2019s campaign slogans. These include such phrases… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[30,31,29,28],"ppma_author":[171],"class_list":["post-1702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-maga","tag-mexico","tag-trump","tag-wall"],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"authors":[{"term_id":171,"user_id":16,"is_guest":0,"slug":"adam-pena","display_name":"Adam Pena","avatar_url":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/wp-content\/litespeed\/avatar\/56ed7191e10fad99c316fb62d9de9d85.jpg?ver=1778638584","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1707,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions\/1707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}