The actual verbiage of the executive order reads:
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the executive branch to:
(a) secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border...
...
Sec. 3. Definitions.
...
(e) "Wall" shall mean a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous, and impassable physical barrier.
...
Sec. 4. Physical Security of the Southern Border of the United States. The Secretary shall immediately take the following steps to obtain complete operational control, as determined by the Secretary, of the southern border:
(a) In accordance with existing law, including the Secure Fence Act and IIRIRA, take all appropriate steps to immediately plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border;
(b) Identify and, to the extent permitted by law, allocate all sources of Federal funds for the planning, designing, and constructing of a physical wall along the southern border;
(c) Project and develop long-term funding requirements for the wall, including preparing Congressional budget requests for the current and upcoming fiscal years; and
(d) Produce a comprehensive study of the security of the southern border, to be completed within 180 days of this order, that shall include the current state of southern border security, all geophysical and topographical aspects of the southern border, the availability of Federal and State resources necessary to achieve complete operational control of the southern border, and a strategy to obtain and maintain complete operational control of the southern border.
That means the following:
1. Building the wall is only the "policy" of the Trump administration. It isn't an actual order to build it.
2. In the definition of the wall, Trump says there's no guarantee there will be an actual wall and, instead, there coule be other "similarly" secure barrier.
3. The executive order orders the Secretary of Homeland Security to take steps to immediately "plan, design, and construct a physical wall." Not construct. Plan and design first. Problem is, there's no money to do that. Thus the following item:
4. Use only the funds available to "planning, designing, and constructing of a physical wall." In other words, just pay for a plan for the wall because there's no more money.
5. Ask Congress for money for building the wall. Good luck with that. But there's another problem: that part of the executive order actually says the wall will require money for YEARS. Which means that wall is going to cost a lot more money over a period of years. By the way: asking Congress for money for the wall means American taxpayers will pay for it, not Mexico.
6. The executive order does not contain any verbiage at all indicating how will Mexico pay for the wall. It orders the Department of Homeland Security to ask Congress for money for the wall, which means Americans taxpayers will pay for it, not Mexico.
7. Oh, and the Trump administration has up to 180 days to come up with a solution to Trump's order for a border wall.
In short, Trump is ordering the Department of Homeland Security to plan and design a wall and to ask Congress for money to build it. In other words, the building of the wall will not depend on Trump, but Congress and how much funds can the Republicans approve for that wall, which isn't much since the Republicans have publicly stated they can pay for a fence but not for a wall. Why a fence? Because the border fence was approved during the George W. Bush administration, but the project was for 700 miles of fencing, most of which has already been built. The only thing left for that project was fencing reinforcement, but that won't work for a 2,000 mile wall.
Which means Trump is not ordering the construction of a wall. He's asking to plan for the construction of a wall (which means ne he never had any idea if that was even possible) and to ask Congress for money for it. So that's not an executive order to build a border wall. It's a phony executive order to build a wall, since it does not guarantee the construction of the wall, nor the money to build it.
Which means Trump wants his supporters to think he's building a wall when in reality he isn't.
That might explain why the Mexican Peso went up in value after Trump signed the executive order:
Because the markets knew that was a phony executive order just for show. If the executive order is phony, then Mexico has nothing to worry about and the Mexican Peso goes up.
The thing is, a phony exectutive order just for show is just as dishonest as a lie.
PS: The executive order also includes the following strange verbiage asking his administration to tell him how much money has been given to Mexico in foreign aid over the past 5 years:
Sec. 9. Foreign Aid Reporting Requirements. The head of each executive department and agency shall identify and quantify all sources of direct and indirect Federal aid or assistance to the Government of Mexico on an annual basis over the past five years, including all bilateral and multilateral development aid, economic assistance, humanitarian aid, and military aid. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the head of each executive department and agency shall submit this information to the Secretary of State. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary shall submit to the President a consolidated report reflecting the levels of such aid and assistance that has been provided annually, over each of the past five years.
There's no indication in the executive order as to why was that verbiage included, but something tells me Trump will try to claim they will suspend foreign aid to Mexico and use the money to pay for the wall instead.
If that's the case, then Trump is in for a surprise, because the United States gives Mexico about 200 a billion dollars per year in foreign aid. That's $1 billion over five years, almost a twentieth of what the border wall would cost and a small fraction of Mexico's budget. So if Trump plans on paying for the wall with that money, he won't be able to. And if he thinks Mexico will miss the money if Trump takes it away, he's wrong too.
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