TRUMP IS OUTPLAYED OVER HIS MEXICAN BORDER WALL / THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Trump is outplayed over his Mexican border Wall

Having lost the shutdown battle, the US president is in a hole of his own making

The editorial board


Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, has described the border wall as ‘immoral’


The US government shutdown that ended on Friday broke many records. At 35 days, it was the longest ever (the previous was just over three weeks). It was also the first that a US president conclusively lost. By agreeing to reopen government without having secured a single dollar of the $5.7bn he demanded for the wall, Donald Trump lost a battle that he had needlessly created.

The victor was Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives. Presidents have the usually decisive advantage of the bully pulpit. In two televised addresses during the shutdown, Mr Trump painted himself ever deeper into a corner. His descriptions of invading Hispanics made him sound anything but presidential. His poll numbers kept falling. By folding to Mrs Pelosi’s demand to reopen government before talks could begin, Mr Trump has shattered the aura of power around him. He emerges from this gratuitous brinkmanship far weaker than when he began.

The nadir was the way in which Mr Trump and his cabinet officials spoke about the idled federal workers. Having missed two paychecks, many of the 800,000 or so government employees had to rely on the food banks that sprang up as the crisis wore on. One official said they were enjoying a paid holiday — it was just that the deposits would arrive late. Another questioned why they needed to take charity at all. The latter, Wilbur Ross, the US secretary of commerce, is worth an estimated $700m. Mr Trump said that most of the furloughed employees were Democrats anyway.

Given that the unpaid workers included members of the FBI, which is investigating the president, border patrol agents and air traffic controllers, this was not merely insensitive but also tactically misguided. The event that appeared to trigger Mr Trump’s climbdown was the near-shutdown of New York’s La Guardia airport on Friday. Too few air traffic controllers had turned up to work.

The crisis is far from over. Unless Mr Trump and Mrs Pelosi strike a lasting bargain, the government could shut down again on February 15. Mr Trump only signed up to three weeks of new funding last Friday.

Mr Trump is itching to disprove conservative critics who say he blinked first. That will make it even harder for him to make the necessary concessions — such as legalising the 700,000 or so “Dreamers”, who were brought illegally to the US as children — to secure Democratic funding for the wall.

Mrs Pelosi has already described the border wall as “immoral”. Any funding would therefore need to be spent on drones, electronic surveillance and courts. Whether it is built from steel or concrete, a 2,000-mile barrier is unlikely to pass Mrs Pelosi’s “evidence-based” test of what will work. Most illegal immigrants overstay their visas rather than sneak over the border. Moreover, native-born Americans are likelier to commit crimes than newcomers. Mr Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” looks more politically unlikely than ever.

In the absence of a deal, the danger is that Mr Trump will declare an emergency and divert military funds to the wall. That could trigger a far larger crisis than the shutdown. It would almost certainly end up in the courts. Mr Trump was elected on a promise of building a wall. He was unable to advance it when Congress was controlled by Republicans. Why he believes he can pull it off now that he faces the formidably disciplined Mrs Pelosi is a mystery. Having advertised the art of the deal, Mr Trump is tasting the reality of surrender.