Donald Trump appeared to be increasingly supportive of a bipartisan congressional plan to avert another government shutdown, raising hopes the president could sign the compromise measure, despite the fact that it does not allocate $5.7bn for his wall.
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Mr Trump initially panned the proposed legislation, telling reporters on Tuesday afternoon that he was “not happy” about the planned compromise.
However, after speaking to Republican Senator Richard Shelby, one of the lead negotiators on the agreement, Mr Trump appeared to soften his tone, asserting on Twitter that the bill would allow him to get “almost $23 BILLION for Border security” and suggesting that he no longer needed money specifically allocated for the wall.
“Regardless of Wall money, it is being built as we speak!” Mr Tump tweeted.
The tentative agreement, struck late on Monday night, would provide $1.4bn to build 55 miles of barrier fencing along the border with Mexico — significantly less than the $5.7bn Mr Trump sought. The wall’s length would be one quarter of what the White House originally demanded.
However, Republican congressional leaders have pressed the point that the bill will provide new border security funds that can be spent flexibly, opening the door for Mr Trump to portray the deal as a win.
Wall Street was heartened by the signs of compromise on Capitol Hill, with the benchmark S&P 500 rising 1.3 per cent.
“The US government shutdown seems to have been averted and there’s a strong chance that import tariffs on Chinese goods will be postponed,” said Kit Juckes, global head of currency strategy at Société Générale.
In addition to some funding for Mr Trump’s wall, the deal reached by Democratic and Republican negotiators attempts to broker a compromise on a dispute about the number of detention beds allocated to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that holds people who cross into the US without the necessary papers.
ICE currently uses 49,000 beds, breaching a congressionally mandated cap of 40,500. The tentative deal would cut the number of beds to the existing cap by the end of the 2019 fiscal year.
However, Republicans have argued that the agreement allows for up to $750m of Department of Homeland Security funding to be reallocated to the detention programme, potentially allowing ICE to fund an additional 13,000 detention beds.
Conservative commentators, including Fox News host Sean Hannity, have denounced the deal, and Mr Trump has listened closely to Fox’s anti-immigrant critics.
However, some conservative commentators, including radio personality Rush Limbaugh, suggested that Mr Trump could portray the deal as “a win” because he had forced the Democrats to compromise as well.
“Nobody can say he isn’t trying. Nobody can say he’s caved on the premise of controlling illegal immigration and shoring up the border,” Mr Limbaugh said on his radio programme.
Mr Trump could still choose to veto the bill, or else sign it, but then seek other ways to get additional funding for his wall, such as appropriating the money from other agency budgets, or declaring a national emergency at the border. Senior Republican lawmakers have strongly urged him against taking this approach.
Should Mr Trump proceed with an executive action, the move could potentially be bogged down by legal challenges and blocked by the courts. On the other hand, it could potentially offer Mr Trump wriggle room with his base. The shutdown that began in December lasted 35 days — the longest in US history.
Asked by reporters on Tuesday if he would consider calling a national emergency to build the wall, Mr Trump replied: “I’m considering everything.”
