Top Mexican official calls US border wall a ‘hostile’ act

“The president’s 11th-hour demand threatened to upend the progress. And we’re pleased that the president has indicated that he is backing off from a wall”. And in a further sign of weakness, in a recent interview with the Associated Press, he wouldn’t rule out signing a bill that doesn’t include any wall funding.

Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said on Tuesday he doesn’t think such a wall will accomplish anything, calling it “a bad idea”.

Trump and his team had previously been resolute in their demand for funding in the omnibus plan.

Building the wall, paid for by Mexico, was a key promise during Trump’s presidential campaign.

The majority of United States voters believe that securing funding to construct a wall along the south border is not important enough to justify a government shutdown, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll revealed on Wednesday.

A senior White House official told ABC News the White House will not agree to include money for Obamacare subsidies in the fiscal year 2017 spending bill, saying, “Why don’t you ask the Democrats if they are willing to shut down the government over that?” “We’ve had a very hard time performing the very basic fundamental tasks of governing”, said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa.

There are still several sticking points in the negotiations.

Democrats uniformly oppose the wall and will vote en masse against a bill with such funding attached.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he was optimistic the talks would produce “an agreement in the next few days”.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on Wednesday that he hoped there would be no need to pass a short, stopgap bill continuing spending at current levels and that a measure funding the government through September will instead be enacted in time for the midnight Friday deadline.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer welcomed Trump’s Monday night comments and noted there were Republican opponents of the wall too. Hurd believes that even President Trump’s supporters who chanted about a building wall at his campaign rallies are more interested in those measurable results than they are in an actual wall.

I’m sure there are many in Trump’s hard core of supporters who will hold fast to their faith in the president and tell themselves that their beloved wall will get built eventually.

At the White House, Trump vowed that the wall will get built soon and will “stop drugs” and reduce human trafficking.

The Wall does have that Trump touch, though – it sounds great, costs a lot, and doesn’t actually work.

“Nothing has really gelled in terms of what the playing field is going to look like”, said Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action, the political advocacy arm of the influential Heritage Foundation think tank.

“We don’t know how this ends”, offered Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. Schumer added on Tuesday that Democrats could support other forms of border security, however.

Donald Trump appeared determined Tuesday to score key victories to mark his first 100 days as president, as he seeks to boost border security, unveil tax reform plans and avert a government shutdown.

The issue arose this week as Congress squabbled over government-wide spending legislation, including money for security measures along the U.S. -Mexico border. “If the wall is not built, which it will be, the drug situation will NEVER be fixed the way it should be!”