One certainty of Trump's Mexico wall: big money

New York

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 US border with Mexico, which stretches roughly 3,200km, from California to Texas.

Five years and about US$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 90km of the border in Arizona.

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

Today, as President Donald 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 te…