Rock Island Democratic Representative Cheri Bustos disagrees with the national emergency declaration over a southern border wall that President Donald Trump made Friday morning.
Bustos says that the real national emergency is the impact of the trade war with China – which she claims has caused farmer bankruptcies to soar to the highest levels in the last decade.
“Let’s look at what the real national emergency is. It’s what Donald Trump is doing to our family farmers,” she told Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s this unnecessary trade war where we’ve got corn and soybeans that are having to sit there because we don’t have the markets with Canada, and Mexico and China because of this self-inflicted trade war. That’s the real national emergency if you ask me, coming from ag country.”
She added that Republicans and Democrats came together to create the bipartisan government funding compromise that only included $1.4 billion for Trump’s southern border wall.
On Friday, the President announced that he would declare a national emergency to fund the border wall with Mexico.
A statement from Bustos said that by declaring a national emergency, Trump can divert $3.6 billion in military construction funds to build the border wall.
Bustos, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, said she’ll, “fight tooth and nail to make sure that the very military construction funds for projects at the Peoria Air National Guard Base and the Rock Island Arsenal aren’t diverted for this power grab by the administration.
