Trump And His Walls

I wonder if adolescent Trump was ever a stamp collector. Most Americans who know of the existence of Spanish Sahara (1884-1975) only know about it as a part of their collections. It's a big, mostly empty territory south of Morocco and north and west of Mauritania, bordering on a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean. A tiny corner touches southwest Algeria. Today it is a 100,000 square mile-- around the size of Colorado-- disputed area with about half a million people, 40% of whom live in the only real city, Laayoune. The main claimants are Morocco and the Polisario Front, which set up a government-in-exile as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Tindouf, Algeria. North of the Spanish Sahara, south of Agadir on the Moroccan coast is a 580 square mile enclave called Ifni (which is also best known in America to stamp collectors). About 50,000 people live there, primarily in Sidi Ifni. Spain occupied it in 1476 but abandoned it after fierce resistance from the locals. Spain reoccupied it in 1859 after a short war with Morocco, but ignored it until 1934. It was reoccupied by Morocco on 1957 and reintegrated into Morocco in 1969.

Today Spain has to tiny enclaves-- basically smuggling ports-- on the north coast of Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla. The Sahara Desert-- 3,600,000 square miles, about the size of the U.S.-- stretches from what was until 1975 the Spanish Sahara and Morocco through Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Tunisia, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Libya, and Egypt.

I've been visiting Morocco since 1969 and had started wandering south of the Atlas Mountains in the 1990s. A couple of different times Roland and I drove as far south as Moroccans roads would go, once to Sidi Ifni on the coast and once to M'Hamid on the edge of the Sahara. We rented some camels and a guide and set off for the legendary Timbuktou. We never got close and turned around and headed back for M'Hamid. Years later we made it to Mali, went to Timbuktou and hiked north to trade with Tuaregs in the desert. Another time we took a Nile cruise, got off halfway, got on some camels and rode out into the Libyan Desert, an extension of the Sahara. In all the Sahara desert is about 3,000 miles from east to west, a thousand miles longer than the U.S. border with Mexico.

So why bring all this up? Trump told the Spanish government-- which hasn't been able to finish building a modern freeway from Madrid to Barajas Airport-- to build a wall across the Sahara to stem the migration of Africans across the Mediterranean Sea and on into Europe. The Guardian reported that Josep Borrell, Spain's foreign minister, revealed that during a visit to the White House by King Felipe and Queen Letizia in June, Señor Trumpanzee made his crackpot proposal. When someone mentioned that the Sahara is 3,000 miles long, Trump dismissed the objection by stating flatly that "The Sahara border can’t be bigger than our border with Mexico." Of course, there is no "Sahara border" and what does it have to do with Spain anyway? Spain has been overwhelmed by over 33,000 refugees getting across the Mediterranean to its shores this year, more than have come via Italy or Greece.

The migration issue has been used as a political weapon by rightwing parties who have been accusing Spain's socialist government-- and the EU-- of being too soft on immigration. None of those parties, however, have embraces Trump's insane scheme, which everyone in Europe is laughing about. Meanwhile, Trump was whining and pestering congressional Republicans about not including his own idiotic wall on the Mexican border in the budget.

Trump pressed fellow Republicans in Congress on Thursday to “get tough” and push to fund his proposed border wall in the current spending bill, raising the specter of a government shutdown when funding lapses later this month.

In a post on Twitter, Trump called the bill “ridiculous” for not including funds for a planned wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, and blamed Democrats for blocking it in the plan passed by the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday.

The Senate-approved massive spending package included a provision to fund the federal government through Dec. 7 in an effort to avoid a government shutdown when funding ends Sept. 30.

The move gives lawmakers more time to finalize plans for next year’s spending, and avoids potentially angering voters who could be left without services from federal agencies weeks before the Nov. 6 congressional elections.

Republicans, who are seeking to keep control of both chambers in the November election, narrowly control the Senate with 51 seats against 49 for Democrats, and need Democrats’ support to pass any spending legislation.

The spending legislation must pass the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives before it can be signed into law by Trump.

Trump has previously threatened to let the government shut down on Oct. 1 if he does not get money for the border wall.

“I want to know, where is the money for Border Security and the WALL in this ridiculous Spending Bill, and where will it come from after the Midterms? Dems are obstructing Law Enforcement and Border Security. REPUBLICANS MUST FINALLY GET TOUGH!” Trump said on Twitter.

Trump is seeking to make good on a key campaign promise to build the wall, but had long pledged that Mexico-- not U.S. taxpayers-- would fund it, something Mexico has refused to do. He has now, instead, turned to Congress for support.