Amid rumors that he would cancel his trip to the United States, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday night said firmly that “Mexico will not pay for a wall.” On Thursday, Donald Trump did what looks like the international relations equivalent of “you can’t fire me because I quit,” tweeting that:
If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting
Mexico has not changed its story once. Mexico is not willing to pay for the insulting, racist wall. Trump is the one who’s gone from insisting that Mexico would pay, period, to saying that “we will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico” sometime in the future after building the wall with U.S. money, to canceling the meeting because Mexico won’t pay for the wall. But the wall has to be built because he campaigned on it, even though he also campaigned on Mexico paying for it, and that’s not happening. Whatever, though, no worries, because:
House Speaker Paul Ryan says President Donald Trump's border wall will cost $12 billion to $15 billion — and Ryan says Congress will pay for it by this fall.
For eight years, congresssional Republicans have rejected real investment in America’s bridges, railroads, schools, roads, water systems, and so many other troubled pieces of infrastructure. But an ineffectual wall that will damage relations with a neighboring country? Shoot, yes!