U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said on Wednesday that the House would fund the wall that President Donald Trump wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We’re going to pay for it and front the money up,” Ryan told MSNBC in an interview when asked who is going to pay for the wall.
“There are a lot of different ways of getting Mexico to contribute to doing this,” he added.
According to The Hill, Ryan had told his colleagues he will likely move a supplemental spending bill this year to pay for the border wall.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order calling for the construction of “a physical wall” along the southern border to be manned by “adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug trafficking and acts of terrorism.”
During his election campaign, Trump met with Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto to discuss the construction of a wall separating the two countries. Nieto said his government will negotiate with Trump, but will not pay for the wall - despite Trump's insistence he do so.
Trump told ABC News on Wednesday that construction will begin in a matter of months and insisted again that he would press Mexico to reimburse the U.S. Treasury at a later date.
"We'll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico. I'm just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form,” the President stressed.
Hours after Trump signed the executive order, a senior government official in Mexico said that Pena Nieto is "considering" canceling next week's visit to Washington.