28 August, 2017
Flake criticized the president's claim that the Mexican government would pay for a border wall.
"President Donald J. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell remain united on many shared priorities, including middle class tax relief, strengthening the military, constructing a southern border wall, and other important issues", the White House said in a statement Wednesday.
Blowing up the GOP's attempts to hush Trump's government shutdown threats, Kellyanne Conway said Trump will not back down on the wall, even if he has apparently abandoned his campaign promises of making Mexico foot the bill.
The statement read: 'As the Mexican government has always stated, our country will not pay, under any circumstances for a wall or physical barrier built on United States territory along the Mexican border.
But fencing and walls are not enough, one DHS official said hours before Trump's planned visit.
We are in the NAFTA (worst trade deal ever made) renegotiation process with Mexico & Canada.Both being very hard, may have to terminate?
Trump accused Mexico of being "very difficult" at the negotiating table over the North American Free Trade Agreement, and threatening anew to terminate the deal.
"This notion of a 2,000-mile wall has been - for anyone who spends time on the border - just out there, because there is so much of the border that simply doesn't lend itself to a wall of any type", Flake said.
At a rally last week in Phoenix, Trump told supporters, "If we have to close down our government, we're building that wall", and that "one way or the other, we're going to get that wall".
In discussing Trump's border wall after the hearing, Flake pointed out that he supported an ultimately unsuccessful 2013 measure that would have provided money for hundreds of miles of fencing and increased the number of agents serving in the U.S. Border Patrol.
Trump has recently tied funding for his wall to domestic politics and an impending deadline for the funding of government.
Since taking office, Trump has called for Congress to allocate money for the wall instead and have Mexico pay the USA back. Dent, who's from the swing state of Pennsylvania, said bringing the government to a halt over $1.6 billion in wall money would be a "fool's errand" and "political malpractice". "This statement is not part of a Mexican negotiating strategy, but rather a principle of national sovereignty and dignity", the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Sunday.
