Spain’s Herald website published an article entitled “The Wall Divided of American Society” on December 20, saying that US President Trump’s order to build the wall on the border with Mexico is ideologically significant.
The construction of the wall not only symbolizes the closure of the United States to the world, but also represents the division within the United States. This is the division promoted by the current U.S. government among the people.
The article said that Trump ordered the construction of a wall in the last few weeks of his term, which he knew was a great legacy of “Trumpism”. And he is well aware that Biden intends to stop the process as soon as he takes office.
Biden has long mentioned and repeatedly reiterated this in his campaign.
“This wall means unimaginable destruction.” Deb Harlan, who will be the home secretary in the Biden administration, said.
The article said that Biden would save $2.6 billion if he stopped building the wall immediately after he was sworn in, according to the Pentagon report. The wall will be one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in federal history in the United States. However, abandoning its construction is not free. Although the amount is unknown, the government is likely to pay a fine under the construction contract.
Citing CBP data, the article pointed out that the Trump administration has spent about $15 billion on the construction of the wall, one third of which came from Congress, and the rest was misappropriated from the budget of the Department of Defense, anti-drug programs and military accounts. According to the data, 681 kilometers of border wall have been completed from early 2017 to December this year, but most of it is the renovation and reinforcement of the area of existing obstacles.
The military estimates that after Biden was sworn in on January 20, the border wall project will have about $3.3 billion in unused funds left, and the cost of canceling the construction contract may be about $700 million.
Biden believes that the construction of the wall has little effect on preventing criminals and drug cartels from using the U.S. border, and measures such as improving checkpoints at ports of entry do help to ensure national security.
The article said that the prospect of the wall project to a standstill is in sharp contrast to Trump’s eagerness to achieve the goal of building a 725 kilometers of the wall set this year. The project damaged a large number of mountain environments, especially throughout Arizona.
Some claim that the wall provides them with greater security against the “aggressors”, but many landowners are extremely angry about the destruction of the environment.
