Pentagon plan to fund Trump’s wall could hit Puerto Rico, European allies hard

By Paul Sonne and Erica Werner March 21 at 6:46 PM

Pentagon plans to take money away from military construction projects to pay for President Trump’s border wall would potentially deal an outsized blow to Puerto Rico and particularly affect a program helping European allies deter Russia, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Under pressure from lawmakers, the Defense Department released a list Monday detailing $12.9 billion in military construction projects that had received money from Congress but had yet to be contracted. That status puts them in a pool of funding that Trump could take for the wall using emergency powers.

The Pentagon hasn’t said which specific projects would be defunded. But it has ruled out taking money from military housing projects or contracts due to award before the end of the fiscal year. When those are stripped out, the refined list decreases to $4.35 billion worth of projects that are actually vulnerable. The Trump administration plans to take up to $3.6 billion, or 83 percent, for the wall, meaning most of the projects on the shorter list face could be defunded.

Puerto Rico is the most affected U.S. territory or state, with 10 projects at a value of $403 million on the smaller list, according to The Post’s analysis.

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Also on the most-vulnerable list is some $745 million worth of projects for the European Deterrence Initiative and its predecessor program. President Barack Obama launched the program in 2014 to shore up the defenses of European allies after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

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