"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively," Trump said during his June 2015 campaign kick-off. "I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I'll have Mexico pay for that wall." Trump's promise to build a wall on the southern border was a consistent crowd-pleaser during the campaign. Congressional Republicans have vowed to finance its construction, but have been short on the how and when details. His guarantee that the Mexican government would foot the bill, which could, according a Reuters report out Thursday, cost more than $20 billion, had been one of the pitch's key selling point. But their president, under pressure at home, has balked and dismissed it out of hand. When the White House floated a 20% tariff on Mexican imports to cover the upfront costs, there was a rare bipartisan meltdown and the trial balloon was quickly deflated.
A little more than a week before his inauguration, Trump declared at a wild press conference in New York that "Russia, China, Japan, Mexico, all countries will respect us far more, far more than they do under past administrations."