If there is one scenario where Donald Trump feels comfortable, it is in front of the cameras. And yesterday was the first time since he was elected president-elect of the United States that he was face to face with the media.
From his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, he touched on the topics that interest him most: His political rivals and the border with Mexico.
First, he urged the current government of the president Joe Biden to end the sale of portions of the border wall that were purchased but not used, threatening legal action.
“We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of additional dollars building the same wall we already have,” Trump said. “It is almost a criminal act.”
Despite the inflammatory rhetoric of his statements, on this occasion the Republican magnate appeared calm before the media, and even He joked with some of the journalists he recognized, pointing out that his arrival at the White House for the second time has been less controversial than the previous one..
“The first time, everyone fought with me,” he said. “This time everyone wants to be my friend.” After spending much of the last few weeks away from the public eye inside his estate, Trump used the conference to test some of his policy ideas, attack his enemies and warn of what is to come.
Promises and warnings
Trump criticized the Government of Biden for the sale of material for the border wall, saying that he is in communication with the state attorney of Texas, Ken Paxtonand other state officials to discuss the possibility of seeking a restraining order.
And it is that Congress required the Biden administration last year to dispose of unused border wall material. The measure, included in the national defense authorization law, allows the sale or donation of the pieces to the States on the Southern border, as long as they are used to renew existing barriers, not to install new ones.
Congress also ordered the Pentagon to cover the costs of storing border wall material while it is not in use.
The above did not please Trump at all, who “asked” Joe Biden to please “stop selling the wall.”
During his press conference, the Republican, who assumes his second government next January, also pointed out that construction has become more expensive. “It is a very expensive process, a very expensive wall,” he recalled of the first wall, which used steel.
He added that today’s construction industry has improved and that there is a lot that can be done with concrete.
“We have very resistant concrete and, in addition, a reinforcing bar,” said the magnate.
AP
Mexico and Canada remain in the Republican’s sights
The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, warned the governments of Mexico and Canada about the “unfair” cost for his country in immigration matters.
Trump He promised that he will resume his tough immigration policies that he promoted during his first term (2017-2021), beginning with the construction of the border wall with Mexico and stressed that he will undertake the promised mass deportations.
But especially the Republican stressed that the Governments of Claudia Sheinbaum (Mexico) and Justin Trudeau (Canada) are warned of the economic damage that migrants cause to the United States and called on them to stop this situation.
“We lose a lot of money with Mexico. We lose a lot of money with Canada, a huge amount. We are subsidizing Canada. “We are subsidizing Mexico,” Trump said.
“Why do we support and give other countries hundreds of billions of dollars? It’s not fair. It’s not good. And the people of Mexico and Canada understand this perfectly. “We have talked about that before,” he emphasized. “You have been warned.”
The warning follows another against Mexico and Canada last month when he said he would enact 25% tariffs on products from both countries through an executive order on the first day of his new term next year.
Voice of the expert
Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances and Development program of the Inter-American Dialogue organization
Logistics will be an obstacle to mass deportation
The director of the Migration, Remittances and Development program of the Inter-American Dialogue organization, Manuel Orozco, pointed out that the future administration of Donald Trump may deport 150 thousand people from Mexico and Central America with irregular immigration status.
“My projection is that around 150,000 people would be deported to Mexico and Central America alone,” he indicated. Of them, about 65 thousand would be Mexicans.
Orozco based his thesis on the fact that although deportation was one of the fundamental issues of Trump’s campaign, once in power he will have a “slightly more pragmatic” position. The core point is not to determine the probability that the promise will be fulfilled, but rather how that promise will be executed,” he explained.
The expert pointed out three factors that the Trump Administration will have to weigh to carry out the deportations, among them the human and economic resources it has to execute the law in accordance with the deportation of people who are in an irregular status in the country.
Orozco observed that the “bucocratic weight on immigration management will be very great” for Trump, because the Joe Biden Administration “was a period where, in the last 25 years, the largest wave of migration that reaches the border occurs.” .
CT