Trump’s Wall Of Fantasy

7 mins read
Modi

Sumera B. Reshi

Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America, in reality, is a true businessman and a television personality rather than a statesman. He is an authentic entertainer and hasn’t got rid of his innate acting skills even though he now holds the highest office.

To be the top man in the world and to take control of the White House in the US, he made several hard promises to his people so that they choose him to the presidency. Withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria, rewriting AfPak policy, taking a dig on Pakistan, to teach a lesson to the North Korean President Kim Jong-un, criticize Teresa May over Brexit deal, to kick start technological and trade war with China, he tried everything to present himself as a demi god to the US and the world.

In all these roles he has acted so well on the stage of the world that he won both accolades as well and disparagements. Since he is an entertainer, so he can’t stay without being in headlines. He can neither sleep nor digest anything without taking to twitter and to make to the top headlines across the world. Syria and Afghanistan are gone, now the current issue is that he has pledged to build a ‘physical barrier’ on America’s border with Mexico because he promised to his people during his election campaign. According to president Trump, the wall was needed for many reasons. It could stop drug and human trafficking, and a nonspecific reference to a torrent of terrorists and coyotes easily flowing in over the southern border. “They drive right in, and they make a left,” he said.

To Trump, Oval office is so cozy that he wants to cling to it for further years. Four years aren’t enough for him to influence the biz and political market in the world. He needs complete eight years to be the top boss of the White House, dictating terms and conditions to democratic and authoritative regimes across the globe. He wants to launch a twitter crusade first, and then uses the Pentagon to teach a lesson to those who differ his views. The latest example is James Mattis, ex-defense secretary.

Now Trump is on another mission. This time he wants to save the American people from illegal immigrants who stealthily cross over to the US. His aim is to erect a 1,000-mile-long wall to restrict the influx of illegal migrants. This has been his core objective since his presidency campaign in 2015. Once he held office as the US’s president, his objective was to curb the illegal immigrants to enter the US, unfortunately, it got stuck in the conceptual phase. However, the argument over the budget with the Democrats in the House of Representatives has given President Trump a context to renew the fight.  He (Trump) refused to sign a bill re-opening the federal government unless Congress gives him $5.7 billion towards the construction of the fence. Nonetheless, since January 6th negotiation were at a standoff between President Trump and Democrats and then Trump threatened to ‘declare a national emergency’ and sidestep Congress if policymakers don’t act on his request in ‘the next few days’.

Also, Trump campaigned on a promise that Mexico would pay for the wall.  And building the wall would be easy. ‘I’m a builder,’ President Trump said. The construction would not be as complicated as building a 95-story high-rise. “And I would have Mexico pay for it,” he said. “Believe me.”

Trump and his cronies claim a new trade deal, yet not endorsed by Congress, will provide savings to meet the promise. Certainly, Democrats control the House have passed bills to fund the government but categorically refused to provide the $5.7 billion for the wall, which Speaker Nancy Pelosi called ‘immoral’ and which most experts believe would be ineffective.

Nevertheless, president Trump is playing to his political base. When he was asked about a claim made by Schumer that the White House was ready to continue the shutdown indefinitely, Trump said, “Absolutely I said that.”

However, “I don’t call it a shutdown,” he added. “I call it doing what you have to do for the benefit and for the safety of our country.”

He added that he could declare a national emergency and build the wall anyway ‘if I want’; rhapsodized about the qualities of steel, the material he now says the wall will be built with instead of concrete; and asserted federal employee affected by the shutdown were ‘in many cases the biggest fans of what we are doing’.

Trump, however, is least worried about the potential dire political consequences. He is immune to criticism & denigration as is evident from the brief history of his presidency.  In 2006, Congress funded the construction of 700 miles of a border wall and fencing, despite the reluctance of the George W. Bush White House and Senate Republicans, who had hoped for a more comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.

Simultaneously, House Republicans insisted on funding a wall because they said it was what their voters wanted in order to stem illegal immigration. Since 2006, the US government has installed barriers — some meant to stop vehicles, some to stop pedestrians and a ‘virtual’ fence that turned out to be harder to build than what officials had thought. The virtual portion of the border wall was canceled in 2011, during the Obama administration.

The proposed wall meanders through private property and has created barriers that have been detrimental to wildlife. Since long, Democrats have been opposing the wall construction, leaving Senate Republicans without enough votes to get the spending legislation passed. As per the Democrats, a border wall is ineffective, in part because it constantly needs to be repaired. Moreover, building the wall is expensive. An official price tag has yet to be determined, but estimates range from $25 billion over the next 10 years to $70 billion. Trump administration insists that there is a ‘crisis at the border’, despite government data that shows illegal border crossings into the US from Mexico are declining. In 2000, federal agents detained 71,000 – 220,000 people trying to illegally enter the US each month. This year, the detainees range from 20,000 – 40,000 people each month.

Trump, as a president with a mission, is caught in bizarre situations. He wants to do it as he did with other issues without seeking expert advice but then he has to face Democrats rather than meek leaders from the third and fourth world. Undeniably, Trump is resolute in building a wall but the question is can he use emergency powers to fulfil his campaign promise?

Experts believe that it is possible the road ahead of him is quite bumpy. The US constitution has given presidents wide discretion to declare national emergencies and take unilateral action for which they ordinarily need legislative approval. A “latitude”, John Locke wrote in 1689 (and his writings influenced the US constitution), must be “left to the executive power, to do many things of choice which the laws do not prescribe” since the legislature is often ‘too slow’ in an emergency.

American presidents have, for example, suspended the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus (Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War), forced people of Japanese descent into internment camps (Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Second World War) and imposed warrantless surveillance on Americans (George W. Bush after the September 11th attacks).

With some notable exceptions, including when the Supreme Court baulked at Harry Truman’s seizure of steel mills during the Korean War, the judiciary has usually blessed these actions, as per an article published on January 9th, 2019 in the Economist. Further, Congress has passed dozens of laws—New York University law school’s Brennan Centre for Justice has catalogued 123—giving presidents specific powers during emergencies.

As per John Fabian Witt, a historian at Yale University, “whether President Trump has the authority to declare a national emergency to build a wall is a “much closer question than it should be”.

It is believed that if Nancy Pelosi continues to deny him funding for the barrier, Trump could follow through on his threat to take extreme measure.  The move would immediately trigger lawsuits; scholars divide over whether they would stand a chance of regulating President Trump’s plans. But if the battle with Congress is more about spectacle than policy, the emergency route could offer the president a face-saving way to sign a bill re-opening the government while pursuing an alternative strategy for funding his wall. In such a situation, Trump might achieve his aims, then, simply by putting up a fight: whether he wins or loses in court, he scores with his supporters. But that means playing a powerful and forceful game of politics that tests the limits of and arguably abuses—a president’s most extraordinary powers.

Now Trump has called for Congress to approve $5.7 billion to build a wall along the Mexican border and declined to sign budget legislation after the 113th congress rejected his full request last month. This move prompted the shutdown, considered the longest in the history of the US.

Policy and lawmakers believe that invocation of an emergency would be done during a moment of real crisis like a terror attack, hurricane or pandemic and would unleash certain authorities, in particular, the distribution of money and that would be like abusing the power. President Trump is on the same path. Even though there is not an emergency but he lying about the nature of the crisis at the border – drugs, human trafficking and terrorists.

John Harwood in an article writes that Trump is confused whether he seeks a wall or something else, whether he needs money from Congress or not, whether the wall is ‘desperately needed’ or already largely built.

Days after he was inaugurated as the President of the US, he told Mexico’s president of his “political bind, because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall, I have to. I’ve been talking about it for a two-year period.” And to which Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said there’s ‘no way’ his country would pay for the wall.

The deadlock between President Donald Trump and Democrats is in its second week.  But as it drags on, the fight over funding for Trump’s proposed border wall is evoking comparisons to the ’90s budget fight and other past standoffs.

Democrats are growing increasingly confident that President Donald Trump’s rigid demand for $5 billion for his southern border wall is going to land him with the trouble. Democrats are now considering other options for a way to end the shutdown — something they plan to make one of their first orders of business after they take control of the House on January 3rd.

There are still seven outstanding appropriations bills that have yet to be passed, and Democrats are looking at a couple of different ways to tackle them.

At present, the US seems to be at war with his own President. This is like a tale of conflict and stalemate between President Trump and Democrats. Trump is a true businessman and has co-authored several books, including ‘The Art of the Deal’, so he knows the tricks of the trade. This time he more on the blackmailing mood. No Kim, no Xi, no Taliban and no Bashar Al Assad, this time his target is the Democrats.

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