Recently US President Donald Trump approved a government funding plan that did not give him much funds for his wall but opted to declare a national emergency on top of that in order to make up for the lost money. Today he is expected to plead with Congress to raise the amount spent on the US military, a part of which is the pool of funds that the emergency gives Trump access to.
According to parties familiar with Trump’s proposal, he will be asking Congress to approve almost 9 billion dollars worth of funding for his wall on the border of Mexico (which is actually only partial, since the funding will barely be enough to cover 10% of the border, leaving the other 90% still unaccounted for). Trump will be asking Congress to consider lowering their planned spending on several other important government programs in order to free up funds for Trump’s border wall project.
With now a stronger Democratic presence in Congress, it is widely expected that Trump’s proposal will fail. Nevertheless, he might be interested in fighting for this in the long-term, since the current spending expires on October 1 and Trump could possibly “blackmail” Congress with a possible default on the United States’ massive debt if Congress refuses to agree with Trump’s budget allocation.
