“Promises made. Promises kept.” That was one of the banners and signs displayed throughout Trump's campaign and presidential rallies dating back before the 2020 election. However, Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (R-FL) believes that former President Trump (R) has not come through on all of his promises, especially the notion that the southern border would be completely sealed off and that Mexico was going to pay for it.
At a recent rally in Iowa, President Trump stated, “Well, there was no legal mechanism,” and “How do you go to a country and say, ‘By the way, I’m building a wall, hand us a lot of money’?”
Gov. DeSantis was surprised to hear the former President declare that the axiomatic rallying cry of his campaign, “build the wall and make Mexico pay for it” was never possible in the first place – According to President Trump.
I will fulfill the promise that Donald Trump made in 2016 to build the wall and make Mexico pay for it.
Here is how I will do it: pic.twitter.com/fXBS0TcV1e
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) October 4, 2023
Gov. DeSantis stated, “I was a little bit surprised when he was in Iowa recently, he was talking about this famous promise to build – and have Mexico pay – for the border wall that he ran on in 2016. And that was a reason why me and a lot of people voted for him. We wanted to see a wall, we wanted to see the illegal immigration finally taken care of.”
Moreover, DeSantis responded to Trump's comments in Iowa, calling out the former president for not coming through on this promise.
“Wait a minute, that was your whole campaign slogan or one of the main slogans in 2016, now you’re saying there was no way to do it? That was not something that I thought spoke very well,” said DeSantis.
Gov. DeSantis believes that there is a feasible way to make Mexico pay for the wall.
“But the thing is, there is a way to get Mexico to pay for it is imposing a fee on the remittances that people who come here are not U.S. citizens, a lot of them working illegally when they send money back, you impose that fee, you get billions of dollars from that and be able to build a border wall,” said DeSantis. So, I will actually do that. I will fulfill the promise that Donald Trump made in 2016.”
But according to Trump, Mexico did pay for the wall.
In an Iowa rally last weekend, President Trump stated that he pressured Mexico into contributing to the construction of the border wall when he threatened to slapped them with tariffs if they didn't command its military to help build the border security wall.
"By the way,who helped us with the wall Mexico? Mexico helped us, I said to Mexico, you gotta give us 28,000 soldiers during the building of the wall. They said no, I said yes you gotta give it to us," said President Trump.I said we're going to put a 25% tariff on everything you sell into the United states instead of including your millions of cars."
Trump touted that the U.S. saved in labor costs when the Mexican military was tasked to build the wall.
