He said it as he launched his presidential campaign June 16. 2015: "Mark my words, I will build a great, great wall on our Southern Border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall." There was even a position paper issued, outlining some of the ways Mexico might be made to pay for the wall, including increased fees on border-crossing cards and NAFTA worker visas at ports of entry to the U.S.

Even then President Trump repeatedly ran into legal, logistic and legislative obstacles. At the end of his tenure, administration officials confirmed hundreds of miles of barriers were built, though the vast majority of those were upgrades of existing structure.

His first day in office, President Biden terminated the redirection of funds for border wall construction. Fast forward to recent headlines in La Prensa, Mexico's favorite newspaper, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to pay $1.5 billion to border wall security in a construction restart that began just 10 days into the 60-day pause President Biden imposed. With our 2021 goods and services trade with Mexico totaling $700 plus billion, thank you President Trump for the make “Mexico pay IDEA.”

Malcolm R. Jules

Ledyard