As might be expected, the funding fight continues as the list of military projects to be deferred to provide the extra $3.6 billion funding for the southern border wall draws bipartisan complaints this week. The result, Bloomberg says, is an increase in pressure on Congress to resolve the long-running conflict – or to find the money elsewhere.
The administration already successfully faced down a bipartisan resolution to end the emergency declaration that was issued after Congress refused to appropriate funds for a border wall in a lengthy government shutdown earlier in the year. Congress was unable to override the veto, even though more than two dozen Republicans in the House and Senate joined Democrats to oppose that attempt to unilaterally shift taxpayer money.
The current list of projects the Department of Defense proposes to put aside includes nearly $1.1 billion targeted for facilities in 23 states, with the rest coming from projects in U.S. territories and overseas.
The cuts hit states represented by members of both parties, including $62.6 million for a middle school at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, the home state of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and $160 million for engineering and parking projects at the United States Military Academy in New York, home to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Alaska, represented by Republicans, and Virginia, represented mostly by Democrats, are also among the biggest losers on the hit list, as are Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, with the trio of territories targeted for $687 million in deferred projects.
A handful of Republican senators seeking re-election next year also are facing cuts in their states, including Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who once wrote a Washington Post op-ed to oppose the president’s emergency declaration, but who later flipped to vote with the president in March. Among the deferrals in his state are projects at Camp Lejeune, one of the state’s major employers. Projects in Arizona, Colorado, Texas and South Carolina are also on the list.
Amid the ongoing controversy over spending on the southern wall, China announced this week that its trade negotiators will travel to Washington early next month for talks boosting the chances for a resolution to the tariff war after weeks of uncertainty and escalation, Bloomberg says.
Vice Premier Liu He agreed to the visit in a phone call on Thursday morning Beijing time with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer, China’s commerce ministry said. Lower-level officials will have “serious” discussions this month to prepare for the talks, which had originally been expected to take place in September.
In addition, the U.S. and Japan are “still thrashing out details of a trade deal” that the administration hopes to sign this month, including the crucial issue of whether he’ll refrain from imposing higher tariffs on imported cars, Bloomberg said.
The president, at the Group of Seven meeting in France last month, celebrated what he called a “major deal” that he and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would sign on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, starting later this month in New York – although observers also note that so far the agreement only includes “broad strokes” of a trade deal.
So, we will see. It appears that the fall will mean increasing tensions over old topics like the economic outlook, trade and spending levels and priorities and that even details about the expected storm tracks can be highly controversial. The result is a broad array of constantly evolving debates that producers should watch closely as they intensify, Washington Insider believes.
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