I won’t be in my office at all today. (How to contact me)

I’m giving a talk about Colombia this morning to a classroom full of diplomats-in-training at the Foreign Service Institute. Then I hope to stop at home on the way to the office and record a podcast.

This was going to be about Donald Trump’s insistence on funding the border wall in the 2017 budget, which Congress needs to pass this week, even if it meant shutting down the government. However, the news last night is that Trump is backing down, which may put off the border-wall funding debate until the 2018 budget, which Congress must try to pass in the summer and fall. (The 2018 budget year starts on October 1, but Congress is nearly always late in approving it.)

So anyway, the podcast needs adjusting. Hopefully I’ll have that done in time to go back to WOLA for a couple of meetings with staff. In particular, we’re going to the U.S.-Mexico border in two weeks and need to start nailing down meetings.