No sign of progress emerged Friday from a meeting at the White House to try to find a way out of the partial blockage of federal administrations in the United States.
In New York, the Metropolitan Museum remains open, “because it does not receive a cent of federal aid,” says his spokesman. The Statue of Liberty also continues to welcome visitors: Liberty Island is a national park funded by federal state funds, but New York State has decided to replace it. On the other hand, in Washington, the tourists find the door closed in front of the national museums of the Mall. Medical programs on Indian reserves are also no longer funded. If police and courier services work, the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State Department, and Treasury have closed as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA.
Eight hundred thousand federal employees have been unemployed or on forced leave for two weeks. And it could last. In the case, the lack of agreement to fund up to $ 5 billion wall “concrete and steel” required by Donald Trump on the US-Mexico border. This conflict has blocked federal funding on the eve of the Christmas weekend and caused a partial shutdown of the administration.
“Months or even Years.”
The President received for two hours on Friday, January 4, the elected Democrats in the White House, but no agreement was reached. “We told the president that we needed to reopen the government,” said Democrat Chuck Schumer, a New York senator. He resisted. He said he could keep the government closed for a very long time, months or even years. “
Donald Trump confirmed to have made these remarks, during a press conference in the rose garden of the White House. “Yes, yes, absolutely, I said that. I do not think it will happen, but I am prepared, ” he said, adding, ” I hope it will not last more than a few days. This could reopen very quickly. “
Mr. Trump blew the hot and cold, careful not to say bad things about the Democrats – he called the talks “very productive” but did not rule out declaring a state of emergency to be able to build the wall by dispensing with the agreement of the Congress. “I could do it,” he told a reporter. We could declare the state of emergency and build it very quickly. It’s another way of doing it, but if we can do it in a negotiated way, it’s better. “
Donald Trump had promised to finance this wall by Mexico during his election campaign. It did not get it but now ensures that Mexico has paid in some way through the renegotiated free trade agreement in the fall of 2018. An agreement that is not ratified. The subject of illegal immigration is less hot than in the past. The arrests on the Mexican border, which were more than 80,000 per month under George W. Bush (2001-2008), fell below 35,000 under Barack Obama and are now only 28,800 under Donald Trump, but the president has made this wall a fetish vis-à-vis its most conservative electorate.
Among the avenues for compromise are an exchange between the financing of the wall and an agreement to protect the deportation of young immigrants who had arrived in the United States who had been allowed to remain by the Obama administration, an authorization revoked by Donald Trump. “You can find common ground, ” Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy (California) said. In the fall of 2017, Mr. Trump pretended to want to find a trans-partisan agreement on the subject, before dismantling it.
Discussions are scheduled to continue on the weekend of January 5 and 6, under the aegis of Vice President Mike Pence. According to the Washington Post, the latter has made the rounds of hesitant Republicans, whose voters do not like the “shutdown,” to avoid a cross-party agreement in Congress that would force Donald Trump to yield. Politically, the latter has little interest if he wants to keep his electoral base, a minority but substantial.