Aggregate Industries is part of LafargeHolcim, the company that in 2017 showed the world its moral colours by declaring interest in Trump's controversial plan to put a wall along the US-Mexico border:
France warned the construction giant against this, and a spotlight was subsequently shone on the cement maker's murky past. The company lost a deal to supply Paris with sand:
"We will do without their services," Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo's deputy Bruno Julliard told the city council, citing Lafarge's readiness to "work on the nefarious project" of a wall along the US-Mexico border.
The company also featured in the French presidential candidates debate, as we posted at the time. One candidate said 'LafargeHolcim is an example of what’s wrong with capitalism':
"It built the Atlantic wall under Petain and Hitler," she said, referring to the defenses built by Nazi Germany along the coast of continental Europe during the second world war. "Now, we’ve all learned, it’s been doing business with IS, and now, it wants to build the wall between the U.S. and Mexico. It’s clear that these large groups won’t be stopped by a change in regime or a new constitution... The only thing that counts for them is their cash..."
Fellow construction giant CRH ruled out any involvement, and even the LafargeHolcim Foundation warned that Walls don't work:
The Chairman of the Board of the Foundation... said that if companies were to support such conceptions and the discourse of “The Wall”, they would probably participate in one of the most contentious projects of this type in a generation, and that they would create serious contradictions with the values the LafargeHolcim Foundation stands for.
La franco-suiza @LafargeHolcim está lista para vender cemento para el muro de Trump, fronterizo con México #AFP https://t.co/29I0b3c38o pic.twitter.com/3PoQJf7xgx— Agence France-Presse (@AFPespanol) March 9, 2017
How can you support women if you are prepared to help Trump build a wall against humanity?— Mario Van Essche (@mvessche) March 10, 2017
Well done @LafargeHolcim after financing ISIS you agree to build a wall between Mexico and USA #shame— Pierre Papet (@pierre_papet) March 9, 2017
But the US mid-terms results could change the future of Trump's wall, and any hope LafargeHolcim has to profit from it. Even though last month the first section was unveiled, and construction of a 6-mile section is due to begin in February, according to the BBC and The Independent respectively:
The Democrats could also more effectively block his legislative plans, notably his signature promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico.
In order for spending bills to be enacted, they need to be passed by both the House and the Senate. With a Democratic-controlled House, any Republican efforts to secure funding for a US-Mexican border wall could be blocked from passing.
