President Donald Trump says he is calling off negotiations with Democrats on a $2 trillion infrastructure package until party leaders end their investigations into him and his administration.
Trump canceled infrastructure talks today at a White House meeting with top Democrats including US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi (California) and US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (New York). That meeting was intended to find sources of funding for a tentative infrastructure deal reached last month with Democrats, but Trump walked out soon after it began.
"I walked into the room, and I told senator Schumer, speaker Pelosi, ‘I want to do infrastructure … but you know you cannot do it under these circumstances, so get these phony investigations over with,'" Trump said.
The ultimatum means a near-certain demise of an infrastructure agreement that few on Capitol Hill thought had a realistic chance of advancing, given its high price tag and the increasingly adversarial relationship between Trump and congressional Democrats. Business and labor groups said the only way such a deal could advance in the divided Congress would be if Trump offered his strong support.
Democratic leaders said the implosion of negotiations today confirmed suspicions that Trump was never committed to advancing an infrastructure bill, which they had hoped would address everything from highway funding to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building out telecommunications infrastructure. Party leaders say they still want to work with the White House on infrastructure, as they move forward with investigations that center on allegations of obstruction of justice related to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
"We are interested in doing infrastructure. It is clear the president is not" Schumer said. "He is looking for every excuse."
The White House had indicated it wanted to use an infrastructure bill as leverage to achieve other administration priorities. Trump sent a letter yesterday to Pelosi and Schumer saying it was his "strong view" that Congress should pass his US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement before working on infrastructure, something Democrats have maintained is unrelated to any efforts on infrastructure.
But one of Trump's largest obstacles to an infrastructure bill would have been finding $2 trillion. The most likely source of revenue would be to increase federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel that have not increased since 1993, but that remains a non-starter for many Republicans and would only raise a fraction of the required revenue.
Trump said today that he will focus on executive orders, reducing regulations and economic growth while his legislative standstill with Congress continues.
