{"id":297088,"date":"2017-02-24T17:20:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T17:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=297088"},"modified":"2017-02-24T17:20:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T17:20:16","slug":"trump-promises-border-wall-soon-way-ahead-of-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=297088","title":{"rendered":"Trump promises border wall ‘soon, way ahead of schedule’"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump has vowed to start building a wall on the Mexican border “soon, way ahead of schedule”, in a speech at a conservative event.<\/p>\n

Addressing the Conservative Political Action Congress (CPAC), he vowed to always put American citizens first and build a “great, great border wall”.<\/p>\n

He also promised to focus on “getting bad people out of this country”.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump was greeted by chants of “USA, USA, USA!” as he addressed the annual forum in Maryland.<\/p>\n

The Republican recalled his first appearance at CPAC in 2011, when he delivered one of his first political speeches at the event.<\/p>\n

He did not attend last year’s conference, but did show up in 2015.<\/p>\n

“We’re building the wall,” Mr Trump said in his keynote address on Friday.<\/p>\n

“In fact it’s going to start very soon. Way ahead of schedule. It’s way, way, way ahead of schedule.”<\/p>\n

His comments come a day after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly met their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City.<\/p>\n

Neither made any mention of the wall in Thursday’s news conference after their closed-door meetings.<\/p>\n

The wall could cost up to $21.5bn (\u00a317.2bn), according to Reuters, citing a Department of Homeland Security internal report – much higher than Mr Trump’s estimated price tag of $12bn (\u00a39.6bn).<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also needs Congressional approval for funding before moving forward with construction.<\/p>\n

On Friday, President Trump also said he was working on a plan to “totally obliterate” the so-called Islamic State.<\/p>\n

“Foreign terrorists will not be able to strike America if they can’t get in to America,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"BorderImage\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/figure>\n

Mr Trump continued that he “took a lot of heat on Sweden”, referring to his erroneous claim that an attack had recently happened there.<\/p>\n

He told the crowd: “I love Sweden… but the people over there understand I’m right.”<\/p>\n

The president then referred to terrorist attacks in France before telling an anecdote about a friend who used to love travelling to Paris every year, but has stopped because “Paris is no longer Paris”.<\/p>\n

One of the loudest rounds of applause came when he emphasised his ‘America First’ outlook.<\/p>\n

“Global co-operation, dealing with other countries, getting along with other countries is good,” he said. “It’s very important.<\/p>\n

“But there’s no such thing as a global anthem, a global currency or a global flag.<\/p>\n

“This is the United States of America that I’m representing. I’m not representing the globe; I’m representing your country.”<\/p>\n

Mr Trump is the first president to address the group during his first year in office since Ronald Reagan in 1981, according to American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump has vowed to start building a wall on the Mexican border “soon, way ahead of schedule”, in a speech at a conservative event. Addressing the Conservative Political Action Congress (CPAC), he vowed to always put American citizens first and build a “great, great border wall”. He also promised to focus on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[4394,264,3],"class_list":["post-297088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-border-wall","tag-donald-trump","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=297088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=297088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=297088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=297088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}