Mexican cement company offers to build Trump his wall

A leading Mexican cement manufacturer has offered to help President-elect Donald Trump build his more than 1,000 mile long “big, beautiful, powerful’ wall along the US-Mexican southern border.

"We can't be choosy," Enrique Escalante, Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) said in an interview with Reuters. "We're an important producer in that area and we have to respect our clients on both sides of the border."

Trump spent over a year telling voters he wanted to build a wall as protection against illegal immigrants from Mexico which he accused of not “sending their best” but rapists and drug traffickers.

A wall along the southern border between Mexico and the United States, would have to be 2,000 miles long, according to projections by the Government Accountability Office. 

Estimates on the costs of such a wall have ranged from $15 billion to $25 billion, Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute told NBC in October 2015.

The wall, in reality, would only have to be 1,000 miles long by taking advantage of natural borders, but its height grew during Trump’s campaign from 35-40 foot high, or as high as 50 feet and would be made of pre-cast concrete.

GCC is the one of biggest cement producers in Mexico, based in the state of Chihuahua. The company has three plants in the US which generate about 70 percent of its sales.

GCC just expanded its reach by acquiring Cemex, another Mexican company, with a cement plant in Texas and two cement distribution terminals in Amarillo and El Paso and concrete, aggregates, asphalt and building materials in El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Trump had said he planned to invest in energy and infrastructure in the US; Escalante thinks bodes well for him.

“For the business we’re in, Trump is a candidate that does favor the industry quite a bit,” Escalante said.

On announcing his candidacy for president, Trump talked about building the wall.

"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively," Trump said, announcing his candidacy on June 16, 2015, according to Politifact. "I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall."

In his victory speech on election night, November 8, however he talked about building everything but the wall.

“Working together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and renewing the American dream. I’ve spent my entire life and business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world. That is now what I want to do for our country,” said Trump, according to transcript published by The New York Times. “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”

In a three minute video released Monday, however, President-elect Trump made no mention of the wall as the focus of his work in the beginning days of his administration.