U.S. Govt. Shutdown Talks Remain Stalled As Trump Refuses To Budge On Border Wall Demand

NEW YORK, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Jan, 2019 ) :The partial US government shutdown entered its third week Sunday as talks between White House officials and congressional aides remained stalled while the impact on government services and on Federal workers was worsening by the day.

The two sides are scheduled to meet again later today, but there was little hope that the broad divide between President Donald Trump and Democrats over his demand for more than $5 billion to build a wall along US-Mexico border would be bridged anytime soon.

Trump said Sunday he will continue to insist on federal money for the border wall aimed at stopping illegal migration.

Democrats, now in majority in the House of Representatives , have repeatedly said they will not include any funding for the border wall as part of a spending bill to end the shutdown, which entered its 16th day today.

"It's a very important battle to win," Trump told reporters as he left the White House in Washington en route to a staff retreat at Camp David, casting the shutdown battle as a national security issue.

"This shutdown could end tomorrow or it also could go on for a long time," Trump said.

Trump also repeated that he is considering some kind of national emergency declaration that would, in theory, allow him to use defence funds to start building a wall.

Democrats denounced Trump for both his wall demands and his talk of declaring an emergency. "This would be a terrible use of department of defence dollars," Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said on ABC's news show "This Week." Smith called on Trump to reopen the government and then negotiate border security, as well "start paying our border patrol agents and the other 800,000 federal employees who are furloughed." With the parties unable to agree on a spending plan to fund about a quarter of the federal government, Trump is insisting on more than $5 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border; Democrats, calling the wall expensive and impractical, want to reopen the government at least temporarily to provide space for more negotiations.

In speaking with reporters, Trump said he sympathizes with the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have been furloughed or are working without pay, but they can "adjust." On other issues, Trump: Confirmed he will give his State of the Union address on Jan.

29, pursuant to an invitation sent Thursday by new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

Said he hopes to meet again soon with North Korea leader Kim Jung Un over his nuclear weapons programme; Trump again claimed, with no evidence, that without his diplomacy the U.S. would be at war with Kim's nuclear-armed government.

Claimed he is still withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria, but won't necessarily do so "quickly;" earlier in the day, during a trip to Israel, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the U.S. would not withdraw until Turkey pledges that it won't attack Kurdish forces in Syria.

Before his departure for Camp David, Trump taunted Democrats over the immigration, noting that luminaries like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have expressed concern about illegal crossings.

"The only reason they do not want to build a Wall is that Walls Work!" Trump insisted in one tweet. "99% of our illegal Border crossings will end, crime in our Country will go way down and we will save billions of Dollars a year!" Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said the administration is willing to give up plans for a concrete wall and focus instead on a fence composed of steel slats.

"What's driving this is the president's desire to change the conditions at the border," Mulvaney told NBC's news programme "Meet The Press." "And if he has to give up a concrete wall, replace it with a steel fence in order to do that so that Democrats can say, 'See? He's not building a wall anymore,' that should help us move in the right direction." Mulvaney, however, suggested the end of the shutdown is not near, telling NBC: "I think this is going to drag on a lot longer." Democrats called the idea of a physical barrier across the entire border expensive and ineffective, and said the solution involves more personnel and detection technology.

Now in control of the House, Democrats are focused a plan to reopen the government that would include temporary funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which handles border issues.

Funding DHS until Feb. 8 would give the parties time to negotiate a new plan for border, said House Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats.

While criticizing Trump for saying the shutdown could last months or years if Democrats don't agree to the wall, Pelosi said that "the senseless uncertainty and chaos of the Trump Shutdown must end, now."