On Friday afternoon, former Mexican president and leader of the National Action Party Vicente Fox Quesada took to Twitter to very clearly explain that his country will not be paying for Donald Trump’s wall across the U.S.-Mexican border. His statements come in the aftermath of President-elect Trump tweeting he would build the wall he promised on his campaign trail. Only, instead of getting Mexico to foot the bill from the start, he’d use American taxpayer money to be “paid back by Mexico later.”
Not only is this statement absurd (even by Trump’s standards), but it goes directly against the most popular item of his otherwise vague policy plans that drew support in the first place. Fox echoed this reality on Twitter, writing, “Trump may ask whoever he wants, but still neither myself nor Mexico are going to pay for his racist monument. Another promise he can’t keep.”
While House Republicans have begun to make plans to use approximately $14 billion in public funds to build the wall, Trump has made no comment on how he expects Mexican officials to pay him back. In the same way that current Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto has made it abundantly clear he won’t pay for the wall, Fox was adamant on Twitter on Friday. “TRUMP,” he reiterated, “when will you understand that I am not paying for that fucken wall. Be clear with US tax payers. They will pay for it.”
We may be entering a time in which we, as Americans, have to partly rely on foreign government officials to inform us how our tax money will really be spent.