Has a line been crossed?

It was over a decade ago that I was at the BFI London film festival and saw a preview of Desierto (2015) by Jonas Cuaron. It was a truly horrifying film about the Mexican border with the US and how various extremely brutal nationalists ‘protect’ their border. At the time, I took this to be a grim story that thankfully was a stretch of the imagination.

A year later Trump was going around the United States calling for a wall to be built and paid for by Mexico. Once elected he began arranging contracts for its construction. It is not a continuous wall and even “Sleepy Joe” Biden agreed to fill in some gaps. Trump, in his second term has issued new contracts for further work.

The sentiment of the film is a hatred and dehumanisation of Mexicans or frankly anyone in opposition. As we have all seen, the brutalism by ICE murdering US citizens and lynching anyone in the wrong place, there is a palpable sense that the film was, if anything ‘mild’. I often hear people say “oh that would never happen here” but then, to be blunt, they didn’t really expect it to happen in the US. Yet here we are.

Investment doesn’t really have borders. Your portfolio is global and holds shares and bonds from companies located all over the world. The investment world is generally carved up into national or regional markets and the North American market (including Canada) is roughly 65% of the entire world market. Whatever you and I may think of it, remember that the companies that build walls, buildings or anything else when contracted to by a Government are invariably enormous and listed on the market. That includes concrete suppliers, bulldozers and so on – so generally Government spending on private company contracts is probably good for your portfolio. This assumes that things go well (we can all recall the PPE Pandemic providers when it seemed you could be a minnow and grab a piece of the £48.1bn of contracts awarded to known political connections, of which around £14.9bn was written off by the Department of Health). The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is determined to get back some of this money, which of course may win her some praise at last.

Reference: HOC statement: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-12-09/hcws1144

Trump signs contract to build the wall (25 January 2017) –  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/25/donald-trump-sign-mexico-border-executive-order

Here is the trailer for Desierto (2015) … warning, even the trailer is brutal: