In 1987 President Ronald Reagan called upon the leaders of the Soviet Union to tear down the Berlin Wall, an appeal that became reality two years later. Roughly thirty years after Reagan’s famous speech, another American Republican president, Donald Trump, called on the leaders of Mexico to pay for the construction of a wall along the border between the US and Mexico. During his successful 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly announced his intentions to build a wall, and five days after he assumed office in January 2017 he signed Executive Order 13767 to begin its construction.