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US military diverts funds to pay for Donald Trump’s wall along Mexican border
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper conveyed the decision to US lawmakers in a letter arguing that these new spendings were necessary for aiding the work of military deployed to the border.
The US department of defense on Tuesday notified members of congress that it was diverting $3.6 billion by defunding 127 military construction projects to pay for President Donald Trump’s wall on the southern border that he had earlier promised to bill to Mexico.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper conveyed the decision to US lawmakers in a letter arguing that these new spendings were necessary for aiding the work of military deployed to the border.
The letter does not mention the “wall” but specifies 11 separate projects, which will include new and replacement fencing, to be funded with the diverted $3.6 billion, stretched across the border states of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.
The Pentagon has said a list of defunded projects will be released at a later time and insisted they are only being postponed, not cancelled. But to re-fund them — through a “backfill” — it will have to go back to congress, where it will likely run into opposition from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
“The Administration’s irresponsible decision to transfer funds from appropriated US military construction makes America less safe and dishonors the Constitution,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. She did not explicitly say if she opposes “backfill”, other Democrats have.
Democrats have opposed the president’s wall and the failure to come to an agreement on its funding led to the longest ever shutdown of the federal government earlier in the year.
The president has since declared a national emergency to use a rare provision to divert money from the defense department’s sanctioned budget for construction projects at home and abroad to fund the wall.
The country’s premier United States Military Academy at West Point, whose alumni include the Defense Secretary Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is among the 127 projects defunded.
