Trump doesn’t want pieces of his border wall to be sold as scrap metal

An “almost criminal” act. With these words, Donald Trump showed his repudiation of the sale of unused border wall materials recently launched by the Joe Biden administration. The steel plates of the immigration barrier have not been used for years, and have gathered rust and dust at various points along the border after the Democratic president stopped the expansion of the wall when he took office. The materials have been offered, since at least April 2023, on GovPlanet, a government surplus auction marketplace. This week, Republicans have cried out at the desecration of one of the cult objects of Trumpism.

The Daily Wire, a right-wing digital outlet, published a video last week that was allegedly filmed by a Border Patrol agent showing several trucks transporting giant panels from at least three points on the border with Arizona. “The goal is to move all of it off the border before Christmas,” said the agent, who did not reveal his name. This individual estimated that “up to half a mile per day of unused border wall is being moved.” The auction for these lots started at $5.

The post did what it had hoped, provoking the anger of the president-elect’s supporters. He was one of the first to reject the auctions. “I’m asking today, Joe Biden, to please stop selling the wall,” Trump said at his conference on Monday from Mar-a-Lago, where he touched on several topics. One of these was the cost of the barrier. “It’s very expensive, and now it’s about double the price of what it would have been six years ago. And the administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar, knowing that we’re getting ready to put it up,” he added. During his first term in office, Trump built 79 miles of new primary border barriers. Another 300 miles that were already standing when Trump arrived in Washington were reinforced or renovated.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick criticized the auction, calling it a blow to Trump and the American people. He announced on Fox News that the state, which has $1 billion in cash, is exploring the possibility of buying back the 30-foot-high plates, although he conceded that the materials up for auction are “mostly junk, with most panels covered in concrete and rust. There are some usable panels, but they might not be worth the cost of shipping to Texas from Arizona.” Patrick added that they are looking for items in better condition so that Trump can have them when he takes office on January 20.

Former Republican Arizona governor Doug Ducey also criticized the sale of the wall materials, calling it a “last-ditch effort to keep America’s borders open by selling off materials the Trump administration will use to finish the wall.” The end of Ducey’s term was not without controversy due to the use of containers as a border wall, which caused environmental damage, according to several environmental organizations in the area.

Despite the recent scandal, the auctioning of this material is not new. It has been taking place since at least April 2023, when 94 lots, more than 729 panels, were sold on the same platform. The first 81 lots were auctioned for $2 million. Each panel was purchased, on average, for about $212.

Why are the panels being sold?

The sale of steel destined for the border coincides with the end of Biden's term. Trump's election victory last month did not trigger the auctions. When the Republican won, many contracts were already in place for the administration to get rid of the surplus materials, which are worth $300 million, according to Trump's party accounts.

This is because of a National Defense Authorization Act passed by the U.S. Congress this year. The legislation, introduced by Republican lawmakers, required the Department of Defense to come up with a plan to use, transfer or donate the “covered materials” purchased for border construction between 2017 and 2022. Authorities were required to begin moving the surplus 100 days after the law was enacted. Sixty percent of the panels were claimed by Customs and Border Control (CBP). The remaining 40% were sold through the GovPlanet website.

The Pentagon said in a statement to the Arizona Republic newspaper this week that the panels offered at auction “no longer belongs to the U.S. government,” and that it has no legal authority to claim them back or stop the sale of a product that is no longer part of the administration’s catalog.

Some Republicans insist there is still room for maneuver. That’s why they want to revive an initiative introduced in August 2023 that threatened to cut the Pentagon’s travel budget by 1% if the Defense Department did not use or donate unused fragments of the wall to California, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas. All that was needed was for any of these entities to commit in writing “to use these materials for the construction of a permanent physical barrier to prevent illicit human trafficking.” Now there may not be enough time to save a pile of scrap metal.

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