"I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words"
About this Quote
“I will make Mexico pay” is the real payload. It’s not a fiscal plan so much as a fantasy of restored leverage, a promise that someone else will absorb the costs Americans feel they’ve been stuck with: wage competition, cultural change, political neglect. The line quietly recasts migration as a transaction where the U.S. has been duped and Trump, the dealmaker, will collect. That’s the subtext: the border isn’t just a boundary; it’s a scorecard for national dominance.
Context matters. Coming out of the 2015-2016 campaign, the wall became a totem for a broader populist narrative: elites failed, rules are for suckers, strength means unilateral action. “Mark my words” functions like a loyalty test. It dares skeptics to bet against him, turning doubt into disrespect. The intent is less to outline policy than to manufacture confidence - and to bind supporters to a vivid, repeatable slogan that converts fear and frustration into a concrete demand.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Donald Trump Presidential Announcement Speech (Donald Trump, 2015)
Evidence: I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. TRUMP: Mark my words.. This line appears in the transcript of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy announcement delivered at Trump Tower in New York City on June 16, 2015. Your provided version differs slightly: Trump says “I will have Mexico pay for that wall” (not “I will make Mexico pay for that wall”) in this transcript, and the sentence starts with “I would build…” rather than “I will build…”. The earliest primary-source instance I could verify for the full sequence ending with “Mark my words” is this June 16, 2015 announcement speech transcript. Other candidates (1) Trump Talking (Al Cimino, 2016) compilation95.9% ... I will build a great , great wall on our southern border , and I will make Mexico pay for that wall . Mark my wor... |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Trump, Donald. (2026, February 9). I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-will-build-a-great-great-wall-on-our-southern-173046/
Chicago Style
Trump, Donald. "I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." FixQuotes. February 9, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-will-build-a-great-great-wall-on-our-southern-173046/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." FixQuotes, 9 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-will-build-a-great-great-wall-on-our-southern-173046/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.




