The Trump Embassy in Jerusalem will cost $ 21 million more than what he claimed



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The last example concerns the cost of the United States Embbady in Jerusalem. The president publicly announced the cost in March: "We will build it very quickly and cheaply," he said. "They placed an order in front of my office last week for $ 1 billion … We are doing it for about $ 250,000, so check it out." The actual cost will be nearly 100 times higher, as reported by CNN. A contract summary record for the Embbady's Office of State Department Acquisitions (available on usaspending.gov) puts the figure at $ 21.2 million.

[Photo: Seth Herald/Bloomberg/Getty Images]

The construction project was awarded to the joint venture Desbuild Limak D & K, which will adapt and expand the existing facility over a period of one year and nine months. The limited liability company was founded in 2016 by Maryland-based Desbuild Incorporated and Limak, a Turkish construction company backed by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The cost of changing the old US consulate before it was inaugurated this spring alone was $ 400,000, much higher than the $ 250,000 Trumpstimate. The $ 21.2 million contract will move to the next phase of change. It seemed possible that the $ 1 billion estimate Trump was talking about is for an entirely new building, as ABC reports:

Trump's comments created confusion while many wondered where he was confusing the costs to change the consulate and the price for the construction of a new embbady. But President Trump doubled most of his claims at a press conference in April with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, bringing her estimate to $ 300,000 to $ 400,000. "That's how the government works," Trump said. "They were going to spend a billion dollars and we would spend a lot less than half a million."

The State Department confirmed to ABC that President Trump's $ 250,000 estimate referred to the "first phase of amendments". 19659003] A price of $ 21.2 million to expand the facilities of an embbady is not crazy. Indeed, embbadies have very specific security features such as electronic countermeasures that block espionage, armored doors and walls to protect themselves from terrorist attacks, and redundancy systems in the event of an attack. ;emergency. The United States Embbady in London cost $ 1 billion, for comparative reasons.

There is a big gap between Trump's numbers and actual numbers. Sound familiar?

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