Donald Trump’s most famous policy prescription has won an endorsement from Washington Post business columnist Robert Samuelson, who agrees that it’s time for the U.S. to build a wall on its southwestern border with Mexico.
In an op-ed published Sunday night, Samuelson said Trump’s idea to build a wall deserves “consideration and enactment.”
“The crucial question is: If we had a wall, what would we get for it?” he said. “The answer: A wall probably represents our best chance of reaching broad agreement on immigration policy, a subject that has frustrated Congress and the two most recent presidents.”
He said without a wall, which polls show most Republicans support, the GOP in Congress would likely refuse to make any other changes on immigration policy. But he said something as effective as a wall has so far been mocked, and ignored as a way to find a compromise with Democrats.
“If we could buy an immigration bargain for $25 billion, or even a bit more, it would be a fabulous deal,” he said. “That’s the opportunity facing the next president. But we won’t make it any easier by stigmatizing the one change — a wall — that could be the foundation for compromise.”
As for Trump’s insistence that Mexico “will pay for the wall,” however, Samuelson said that part is “absurd.”
