Pentagon approves US$3.6 billion for Donald Trump’s border wall and ‘ego’

More than 120 US military construction projects will be affected as the Pentagon prepares to use funds for border wall

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer blasted moved as a ‘slap in the face to the members of the Armed Forces’

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A rugged uphill section of the US-Mexico border wall that runs through Organ Pipe National Monument. Photo: AP

Published: 7:58am, 4 Sep 2019Updated: 11:04pm, 4 Sep 2019

The US Defence Department said it was freeing up US$3.6 billion in funds budgeted for other projects to build a wall on the Mexican border as ordered by President Donald Trump.

Six weeks after being confirmed by Congress, Defence Secretary Mike Esper has signed off on the diversion of funds from 127 “deferred military projects” both inside and outside the country, said Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffmann.

In February Trump, frustrated that Congress would not provide funding for the 5.5-metre barrier, declared a “national emergency” at the border in order to obtain US$6.6 billion from other budgeted accounts for wall construction aimed at stemming the flow of undocumented migrants from Mexico and Central America.

That included an initial US$2.5 billion from Pentagon spending that was to have been used for programmes to combat the drug trade and other operations.

Building the wall was one of Trump’s central campaign pledges in the 2016 president election battle, along with a promise that Mexico, and not US taxpayers, would foot the estimated US$25 billion bill.

With a new election coming up next year, Trump has recently appeared sensitive to charges that no new mileage of wall has been built yet.