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Transatlantic cable
March 2017
39
www.read-eurowire.com
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.
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.”