Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of steel acquired by Donald Trump’s government to build his ill-fated border wall on the US-Mexico border is now rusting away in the desert, according to an investigation by the Atlantic’s John B. Washington.
The construction of the wall was a prominent component of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, with the former president promising his followers that Mexico would pay for it.
Instead, the initiative was sponsored by the federal government, with the Trump administration transferring Pentagon funds to it in the name of making America more secure.
After Trump lost his re-election attempt in 2020, President Joe Biden’s incoming administration shut down the controversial relic of the Trump era, with personnel being laid off and materials being left behind.
With what was built breaking apart, Washington writes that officials are keeping an eye on pricey steel bollards that were ordered for the wall as they rust, with one Republican claiming the government is spending $3 million per day to protect the construction materials.
Writing that the “Department of Defense owns most of that steel,” Washington said it is spread out along the border from Texas to San Diego, explaining “Along with the steel, contractors have left light poles, electrical supplies, crushed aggregate, processed riprap rock, sand, culvert materials, and piping—altogether worth about $350 million, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—sitting unused in the desert. The Corp wouldn’t itemize costs of materials, and anti-wall watchdogs (as well as some basic math) put the total number significantly higher.”
“Although the unused light poles, rebar, and other material can probably be easily repurposed, the steel itself, mostly in the form of bollards, poses more of a problem. Just one site in New Mexico has about 31,000 bollards, according to calculations I made from aerial photographs. Another 20,000 bollards are spread across four sites in Arizona; a few thousand more sit in the chaparral hills outside San Diego,” Washington reported adding that he consulted with an expert on the materials — who didn’t want to be identified, “but estimated that each bollard costs about $9,000, not including modifications (welding to steel panels and filling with rebar and concrete) or installation costs. If that number is close to accurate, about half a billion dollars worth of steel is sitting in the sun in New Mexico, Arizona, and California.”
Texas and Missouri sued the Biden administration in October, claiming that the administration had halted border-wall construction and was not using funds specifically appropriated by Congress for that purpose. They hoped to force the administration to raise the bollards in the desert, allowing the wall to continue its latitudinal march along the international divide. Regardless of the lawsuit, a large-scale wall is unlikely to be built, at least not under the present government. It took a dubious proclamation of a national emergency—bypassing Congress and straining the meaning of national emergency—for Trump, who campaigned on the promise of a wall, to raise the funds to get that steel cast.
Opponents of the border wall argue that the crisis is caused by the wall rather than migration. Even if only half-completed, the existing sections of the wall compel migrants into increasingly distant and dangerous crossing zones. In some of these areas, migrant mortality is at an all-time high. The wall also puts ecosystems in jeopardy. “Border fences threaten at least 93 endangered and threatened species—think jaguars, ocelots, and Mexican gray wolves,” said Russ McSpadden of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Walls in the wild destroy habitat, alter water flows, and disrupt wildlife migrations.”
The wall is more than just a physical structure. It’s easily sawed through as a barrier. It has flaws and needs to be repaired and monitored on a regular basis. The wall stands for, Traphagen said, the “erosion of the democratic process, compromising the integrity of environmental laws, and a fake emergency.”
