Trump squatting on whitewashed wall of insecurity

Editor's note: Some departments of the US federal government have been shut down for two weeks, affecting more than 800,000 employees. Beijing News comments:

The negotiation between leaders of the Republicans and the Democrats has not broken the deadlock, as President Donald Trump has taken a tough stance, alleging that if the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democrats, does not allocate funds, the US government could be closed for months, even years.

Sure, if the US government was shut down for years, the current administration might also come to the end of its term. What Trump is obsessed with is to finish the wall on the border with Mexico, for which he has exhausted almost every means, including employing emergency power to support the project with military spending under a pretense of national security.

To some extent, the border wall has evolved into an encased knot directly affecting relations among the White House, the Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, even with the United States' southern neighbor as at first, he even asked Mexico to pay for the wall.

As a real estate businessman, his instinctive and professional mania for such a grand project, a symbol of self isolation and a monument to his ego, is partially understandable.

Although the wall is far from finished, the president has succeeded in wakening up the white centralism in US society, if not building a wall in people's hearts.

If the wall is erected at last, the bilateral relations between the US and Mexico will be fundamentally changed far beyond Trump's term.

It must not have been an easy decision for Trump to declare that the US enters an emergency state just for the wall. But shutting down the federal government and declaring a state of emergency are symptomatic of Trump's habitual negotiating tactics of increasing the stakes to put pressure on his opponents.

The shutdown of the US government has happened several times in recent years. But it is different this time, as it is not because of government deficit, but trust deficit in a split society.