President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that "money we save" from a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada would make good on his long-standing promise to have Mexico pay for a new southern border wall.

In February 2016, he told supporters at a campaign rally in Florida that the "wall just got 10 feet higher" after the former Mexican president said the country would not pay for the wall. "Let's fund the government", Schumer retorted in his own Twitter post. Chuck Schumer cracked Thursday on the Senate floor.

He added that "at the end of the day, the American taxpayer is still paying for it, because where are the revenues coming from? You can't have it both ways", Schumer continued. The new deal, which Trump has designated the USMCA, still must be approved by Congress before it takes effect, and some Democrats have signaled they will demand changes.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also looked askance at the president's claim. "But [during his campaign] the president touted himself as the world's best deal-maker, and this is going to be his opportunity to put his money where his mouth is". "It just doesn't measure up", she continued.

During an interview with NPR's Morning Edition on December 12, Rep. Warren Davidson said that he had offered what he referred to as a "modest proposal" in the form of his "Buy a Brick, Build a Wall Act".

The Pentagon has responded to President Trump's suggestion the US military could build the border wall.

May meets Merkel in bid to save Brexit deal
They added that two of those MPs had been "fence-sitters" who had previously been loyal to the prime minister. He said said in an address to the European Parliament: "The deal we achieved is the best possible".

"One way or the other, Mexico is going to be paying for the Wall", Trump said in his early Thursday tweet.

Earlier this week in a meeting with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, Trump claimed that he would "shut down the government" on December 21 over border security if Congress does not approve $5 billion in funding for a border wall.

Funding for the border wall has been a sticking point in spending bills before Congress.

The president, however, did not mention the subject during a telephone conversation with his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, on Thursday.

"It was a respectful and friendly conversation", Lopez Obrador said, according to Reuters.