One Certainty of
Trump’s Wall: Big Money

An earlier attempt tried cameras and radar but ran over budget. The
project was a loss for taxpayers. But for contractors, it was a big win.

It was the border wall that didn’t get built.

In 2006, Boeing and a team of other companies won a federal contract to construct a wall to protect the United States border with Mexico, which stretches roughly 2,000 miles, from California to Texas.

Five years and about $1 billion later, the government threw in the towel. Costs had ballooned, and the surveillance systems suffered from technical difficulties. Nearly all of the money had been spent on just 53 miles of the border in Arizona.

The project was a loss for taxpayers. But for contractors, it was a big win.

Today, as President Trump declares his intention to move forward with plans to build a barrier along the Mexican border, many of the details remain little more than a guessing game. Does Mr. Trump intend to build miles of concrete blocks, or fencing? Could parts of the wall be virtual, using technology like cameras and sensors to monitor the border, or be manned by drones? Will Mexico, as Mr. Trump has promised repeatedly, pay for it?

There is no doubt that if the United States moves ahead with plans for an ambitious border wall — one of the biggest infrastructure projects in decades, perhaps running in the tens of billions of dollars — it will be a boon for contractors.


An examination of failed efforts from the past highlights the potential gains for companies and potential pitfalls for taxpayers. Among the possible winners are construction firms, high-tech surveillance companies and cement manufacturers including, in what would be an ironic turn, one of Mexico’s largest materials companies.

“There’s no question that, when the government spends money on a big project like this, companies are going to make a lot of money,” said Joe Hornyak, a partner with the law firm Holland and Knight, who specializes in government contracting law. “There’s no question about that.”

In the past week, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Congress would move ahead with plans to build the wall, estimating that it would cost $12 billion to $15 billion.

Researchers at M.I.T. said last year that a 1,000-mile, 50-foot-high steel-and-concrete wall would run taxpayers about $40 billion.

Whether the number ends up on the low or high end of these ranges, it has already caught the eye of companies and investors eager to get a piece of the construction action, despite the myriad political and social battles that will surround it. The stocks of several construction companies and cement and concrete manufacturers jumped after the latest talk from Mr. Trump, as investors bet not only on a payday coming from a Mexican border wall but also from proposals floated for about $1 trillion in infrastructure projects.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/business/mexico-border-wall-trump.html?hpw&rref=business&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well