The US government is in partial shutdown after politicians failed to reach an agreement over funding for the Mexican border wall. President Donald Trump’s team was on Capitol Hill late Friday trying to broker a deal with Congress as he pushed for $5 billion in funding for the construction of the controversial wall. But, with Democrats staunchly opposed, they remain in a deadlock, as reported by www.news.com.au.

The absence of an elusive deal meant federal funds for several key government agencies, including NASA, lapsed at midnight (4pm AEDT). “We’re going to have a shutdown,” Mr Trump said via video message on Twitter less than three hours from the deadline. “There’s nothing we can do about that because we need the Democrats to give us their votes. “The shutdown hopefully will not last long.”

Seventy five per cent of government funding has already been approved for the budget year that started in October and will be unaffected. But the shutdown is expected to cut off spending for nine of the 15 cabinet-level federal departments, including Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation, Interior, Agriculture and State.

Operations for several key agencies will cease in the early hours of Saturday, local time. That will cause about 800,000 government employees to stop getting paid just days out from Christmas, and about 380,000 of them will stop working, according to a Senate committee report. Senators have passed legislation so workers receive back pay but that won’t be actioned until the situation is resolved. Access to national parks during the holidays is likely be thrown into disarray as a result of the shutdown, and travellers could face severe delays. The shutdown could cost the US economy billions of dollars and it remains unclear how long it will last.

The shutdown comes after Mr Trump called for the “nuclear option” in a barrage of tweets and warned the closure of vital agencies would “last for a very long time”. “Shutdown today if Democrats do not vote for Border Security!” he wrote.