Evie Fordham on January 16, 2019

President Donald Trump touted walls around the world as “close to 100% successful” in solving problems Wednesday as he continues to push for over $5 billion in funding for a southern border wall.

“There are now 77 major or significant Walls built around the world, with 45 countries planning or building Walls,” Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “Over 800 miles of Walls have been built in Europe since only 2015. They have all been recognized as close to 100% successful. Stop the crime at our Southern Border!”

“It is becoming more and more obvious that the Radical Democrats are a Party of open borders and crime,” Trump added minutes later. “They want nothing to do with the major Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border. #2020!”

Trump’s numbers ring true. There are 77 major walls or fences around the world, and many of them were built after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a tally by University of Quebec geography professor Elisabeth Vallet cited by The Washington Post. Roughly 50 of the structures were constructed after World War II.

USA Today also reported:

Since the start of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, at least 800 miles of fences have been erected by Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Slovenia and others — a swift and concrete reaction as more than 1.8 million people descended on Europe from war zones from Afghanistan to Syria.

But not all of the “Walls built around the world” that Trump praised were built simply to regulate border traffic. The United Nations ended years of fighting between Turkish and Greek forces on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus by constructing a wall in 1974.

One border wall Trump has spoken about is the Israel-West Bank barrier constructed in the early 2000s.

“The border wall — actually much more a security fence — was constructed in the wake of the 2001-2002 terror campaign in Israel,” American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin wrote in 2017. “Almost immediately, the number of successful terror attacks in the Jewish state dropped by 90 percent.”

Trump’s wall talk came as the partial government shutdown hit day 26 Wednesday, continuing to set a U.S. record. It was triggered after a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government expired Dec. 21. At the center of the battle is funding for the border wall the president wants to build.

Trump has accused Democrats of being against border security for refusing to fund a border wall.

Follow Evie on Twitter @eviefordham.

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