EuroWire March 2017

Transatlantic cable

Given the prohibitive cost of shipping heavy rock, concrete and cement, Cemex – with several plants dotting the border – is a likely source for building materials. All contenders for the work will have to do without a clear idea of the scope of the undertaking. Last year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers said that a 1,000-mile, 50-foot-high steel-and-concrete wall would run USA taxpayers about $40 billion. In the week before the Times article was published, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, estimated the cost of building the wall at $12 billion to $15 billion. (“One Certainty of Trump’s Wall: Big Money,” 29 th January) “Despite the myriad political and social battles that will surround it,” wrote Ms Ivory and Ms Creswell, or whether its cost is on the low or the high end of the range, the wall has caught the eye of companies and investors eager for a piece of the construction action. The stocks of several construction companies and cement and concrete manufacturers jumped after the most recent wall talk from Mr Trump. Unintended consequences According to a Times review of spending under the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative, from 2007 to 2012 Washington paid contractors more than $1.5 billion for protection of the USA-Mexico border. Wrote the reporters, in a considerable understatement, “History would suggest that such e orts can have problematic results.”

† The government wants rms and trade groups to sign up to “sector deals” allowing them to call for speci c measures to boost their industries. Examples noted by Mr Sands include slashing red tape, trade deals to increase exports, support for skills, and investment in R&D. On the evidence of the early reports it would appear that the tech sector is out ahead of the pack.

‘The wall’

If Mr Trump does move ahead on walling o the USA from Mexico, on-site Mexican contractors can expect a bonanza USA President Donald Trump has reiterated his signature campaign promise to build a wall along the United States border with Mexico, which stretches some 2,000 miles from California to Texas. While he has provided few details, if the barrier does go up it will be one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the USA in decades. And it will be a boon for contractors. A New York Times analysis of previous failed e orts identi es as possible winners this time construction rms, high-tech surveillance companies, and cement manufacturers. The Times ’s Danielle Ivory and Julie Creswell noted that, “in what would be an ironic turn,” these companies notably include Cemex, Mexico’s largest cement manufacturer, which analysts note has a USA-based subsidiary that could bid for the project.

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March 2017