On Thursday, investors were more broadly waiting for speeches on Friday by central bank governors at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for any new indications on monetary policy.
Advertisement
A former British ambassador to the US, Peter Westmacott, said he saw parallels with the establishment of Nazi Germany in 1933.
This website has consistently supported Trump’s wall – although like most taxpayer advocates we are deeply concerned over the dramatic increases in its estimated cost (which is already roughly $10 billion higher than the costs cited by Trump during the 2016 campaign). But the appropriations bill needed to avoid a government shutdown is another matter altogether. “Secure borders are vital to natl security – Congress shld fund border wall in govt funding legislation this fall – time to keep our promise, ” he tweeted Tuesday.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said he doesn’t think a government shutdown is necessary and pointed out that most people don’t want it to happen. “Democrats will stand fast against the immoral, ineffective border wall”, she said in a statement. In the coming months, Democrats will likely say the same line back to their Republican colleagues.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not specifically support or reject Trump’s ultimatum, but instead suggested he doesn’t want to hold basic federal funding hostage over the issue of border security, adding that he and his team are working with Trump’s administration to “prevent a government default” and “fund the government”. In the Senate, Democrats can block legislation unless the GOP can get eight members of the minority to vote to end a filibuster. The S&P 500 Index .SPX closed about 0.3 percent lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down by 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC slid 0.3 percent.
Trump’s remarks were “unsettling”, Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., wrote Wednesday.
Rank-and-file Democrats and several caucuses representing them took to Twitter Tuesday to double down on that position.
Mexico has refused to pay for the wall, as Trump promised the nation would do during his campaign, so his next available option is to use tax dollars.
“I really think they don’t like our country”, Trump said. “And I honestly believe they don’t”.
Because the debt limit must be raised this autumn, the feud over the border wall threatens even graver consequences than usual.
Political gridlock has never led to the United States reaching its debt ceiling and its bills going unpaid, but there have been close calls. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a leader of a conservative wing of the Republican Party. Democrats could drive an even harder bargain by insisting that Obamacare subsidy payments be included in that bill, further complicating the votes on the Republican side.
Capitol Hill is set to debate a new budget measure this autumn, and unless it is passed federal operations will be in limbo by 1 October.
Advertisement
Trump’s threat likely also complicates the task of raising the debt limit by September 29.
