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WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday made a fresh threat to close the southern border if Democrats don’t fund a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, as a partial government shutdown related to the standoff stretched into its seventh day.
“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with,” Mr. Trump said in a series of tweets. “We build a wall or close the southern border.”
We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with. Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2018
….The United States looses soooo much money on Trade with Mexico under NAFTA, over 75 Billion Dollars a year (not including Drug Money which would be many times that amount), that I would consider closing the Southern Border a “profit making operation.” We build a Wall or…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2018
…..close the Southern Border. Bring our car industry back into the United States where it belongs. Go back to pre-NAFTA, before so many of our companies and jobs were so foolishly sent to Mexico. Either we build (finish) the Wall or we close the Border……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2018
Lawmakers and the White House have made no progress in recent days toward a deal to end the partial government shutdown, likely leaving the border-wall funding fight as the first order of business for the new Congress next year. Mr. Trump, who has remained in town over the Christmas holiday, has demanded that Congress include border-wall funding as part of any spending bill needed to keep the government fully operational.
Democrats said the president was the one being intransigent.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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