New Delhi:
US President Donald Trump will seek US dollar 8.6 billion in fresh funding for a wall on the US-Mexico border in the 2020 budget request, likely triggering another fight with Congress, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Sunday. Earlier, the US House of Representatives dealt a blow to President Donald Trump, approving a resolution blocking him from obtaining funding for a Mexican border wall through his declaration of a national emergency. Dismissing a veto threat by the president, the Democratic-controlled House struck down Trump’s emergency declaration by a comfortable margin of 245-182, sending the measure to the Republican-held Senate. Thirteen Republicans have joined Democrats in voting to “terminate” Trump’s emergency declaration, which the Republican president issued on February 15 after failing to secure billions of dollars from Congress for the wall.
The request, which is to be unveiled Monday, would far exceed the US dollar 5.7 billion Trump demanded last year, which led to an impasse that resulted in a 35-day partial shutdown of the US government, the longest ever.
Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer decried the move, warning Trump that another legislative defeat would await him.
Kudlow, interviewed on "Fox News Sunday," conceded that the new request would likely mean a renewed fight in Congress over wall funding.
"I suppose there will be," he said.
But he said Trump "is going to stay with his wall. He is going to stay with his border security. I think it's essential."
In a joint statement, Pelosi and Schumer charged that Trump "hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall."
"Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson," they said.
The Washington Post reported that the president's request for wall funding will come in the form of USD 5 billion from the Department of Homeland Security and another USD 3.6 billion from the Pentagon.
That will be on top of the USD 6.7 billion in wall funding that Trump has ordered redirected from other government programs under a national emergency he declared last month.
