By Meharr Talwar
The US government federal shutdown of 2018-2019 occurred between 22nd December 2018 till 25th January 2019. This was the longest US government shutdown in history and second during the presidency of Donald Trump.
After the Senate unanimously passed an appropriations bill without wall funding, Trump became victim to massive criticism by right-wing media outlets as he appeared to back down on his initial promises of building a US-Mexico Border Wall. Also commonly referred to as ‘The Trump Wall’, it was one of his key promises during his election campaign and earned him plenty of votes and supporters. Although initially stated that Mexico would pay for the wall, at this point, it’s quite evident that if a wall is to be built, the USA will have to pay for it. Consequently, he announced his refusal to sign any bill that didn't fund the wall's construction and the House passed a stopgap bill demanding $5.7 billion for building the Mexico wall. However, this was blocked in the Senate by the threat of a "Democratic filibuster”.
The president remained quite frustrated due to the slow progress of building the Mexico wall and lack of funds for the construction, thus maintaining his claims to veto any bill that failed to include the capital for the wall. On December 11th, after an argument, Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Oval Office, Trump said, "I am proud to shut down the government for border security [...] I will be the one to shut [the government] down. I'm not going to blame you for it [...] I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down". Although negotiations continued, the Senate failed to pass the bill and ten days later, Trump called the shutdown off.
9 out of 15 federal departments and several agencies were affected by this shutdown. It has taken a toll on about 800,000 federal employees who missed their first pay-check due to the extended argument between Mr. Trump and the Congress. Miami International Airport had to close one of its terminals on Friday for the weekend as security screeners were calling sick at a higher rate than usual. Many people showed their concern towards not having enough workers at checkpoints over the weekend. The shutdown also impacted Canadian trade statistics as many states hadn't received enough data for its exports to the US for the month of December. The Canadian agency warned the US government about the repercussions of the shutdown on the agency’s ability to deliver a complete image of trade between the two nations.
Due to lack of funds, various scientific research projects and NASA operation were kept on hold and were forced to wait for the shutdown to get resolved.
After 35 long days of what has been the longest government shutdown in the USA's history, on January 25th, Trump proclaimed his support for a three-week funding measure that although did not include funds for a wall, would revive the government until February 15. Finally, on 15thFebruary, Trump declared national security emergency to unlock $7.5 billion to build the US-Mexico ‘Trump’ wall, and fulfil his campaign promises. However, the emergency declaration still doesn't guarantee Trump's wall for it will certainly follow with a variety of legal challenges. Trump continues to struggle to defend himself against the Democrats who paint him as a rogue president.
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