$170mn per day: US shutdown cost to exceed Trump’s requested wall funding

As an ongoing shutdown of the US government over President Donald Trump’s border wall approaches its fifth week, analysts are warning that the cost of keeping federal agencies closed down will soon surpass the $5.7 billion that Trump has requested for his controversial barrier.

The shutdown, which began on December 22, had cost the US economy $3.6 billion by January 11, the financial analysis firm S&P warned earlier this week.

According to that estimate, the stalemate is setting the US economy back $1.2 billion every week, or about $170 million per day.

That means on Day 25 of the shutdown the US economy had lost around $4.3 billion dollar as a result and the figure was going to cross Trump’s ideal border security budget if the row continued for another week.

Despite bipartisan calls to end the shutdown, Trump has indicated that he would keep the government closed until Democrats agree to fund his wall on the border with Mexico in the next spending bill.

He pushed the envelope even further on Wednesday, implying in a series of tweets that the issue was only going to be resolved in next year’s presidential election.

“It is becoming more and more obvious that the Radical Democrats are a Party of open borders and crime,” he claimed. “They want nothing to do with the major Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border. #2020!”

Trump makes shutdown a 2020 issue

US President Donald Trump is signaling that the government shutdown is an issue of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has been calling for a wall along the southern border since his 2016 presidential campaign, pledging that Mexico would pay for it.

He says he is “proud” to shut down the government for the $5.7 billion budget but Democrats are not offering more than $1.3 billion.

Around 800,000 federal employees have been on mandatory leave or working without pay for the past few weeks as a result of the shutdown.

Thousands of government employees have staged protests across the country, urging Trump and the lawmakers to re-open closed down federal agencies so they can get back to work.