Trump backs down on Mexican border wall funding

Despite promising to build a wall on the United States’ border with Mexico “immediately” if he became president, Donald Trump has indicated he will scrap plans to find cash for his border wall in the spending bill.

However, he still insists that the wall – with an estimated price tag of £16.85 billion will be built by the end of his first term in office.

“The wall’s gonna get built. It’s going to have a huge impact on human trafficking,” the President said, adding construction will start “soon”.

He also took to Twitter to promise its construction.

The £780 billion ($1 trillion) spending bill must pass by Friday or could result in a government shutdown.

The bill funds federal agencies until the end of the year.

Democrats had promised to block the bill if money were earmarked in it for the wall which they, and many Republicans who’s states contain large Hispanic populations, are against.

President Trump had proposed £1.2 billion for his wall as part of the spending bill. White House officials had already revealed that Trump’s plan would reduce the top corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. The plan will also include child-care benefits, a cause promoted by Trump’s daughter Ivanka. Republicans who slammed the growing national debt under Democrat Barack Obama said that they are open to Trump’s tax plan, even though it could add trillions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.

Echoing the White House, Republicans on Capitol Hill argued that tax cuts would spur economic growth, reducing or even eliminating any drop in tax revenue. “I’m not convinced that cutting taxes is necessarily going to blow a hole in the deficit,“ said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Finance Committee.

“I actually believe it could stimulate the economy and get the economy moving,“ Hatch added. “Now, whether 15 percent is the right figure or not, that’s a matter to be determined.“

The argument that tax cuts pay for themselves has been debunked by economists from across the political spectrum.