Billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell predicts that Mexico is “going to do fine” despite President Donald Trump’s quest to build a 30-foot border wall.

“I think the Mexico-U.S. connection is far too strong for any shift in policy to have anything other than a short term impact,” Zell recently told Fox Business Network.

“We used to talk about China being the manufacturing center of the U.S., well Mexico has become the manufacturing center of the U.S. and frankly that’s a plus,” said Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments and a member of the Forbes 400,

The U.S. is Mexico’s biggest export market, topping $290 billion a year and Mexico is the United States’ third-largest trading partner, Fox reported. It is estimated that 5 million American jobs depend on trade with Mexico.

Meanwhile, hundreds of companies have been eyeing work on Trump’s wall. Some, however, won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole, Bloomberg reported.

Mexican cement giant Cemex SAB won’t participate, though it is well positioned to profit with plants on both sides of the border.

Neither will Vinci SA, a big French engineering company, after Chief Executive Officer Xavier Huillard cited the “sensitivities” of employees. Emmanuel Macron, frontrunner for the French presidency, has warned LafargeHolcim Ltd., the world’s largest cement maker, to steer clear. Union leaders at that company have branded the wall undemocratic.

And Democratic lawmakers in California -- the state that, for many, stands for everything Trump doesn’t -- have gone further, threatening to cut ties with companies that work on the project.

“If they participate in something so harmful to California’s economy and environment as a wall, then we don’t want to do business with them,” said state Senator Ricardo Lara, who introduced legislation that would blackball them from government contracts.

There is little doubt that if Congress finds as much as $25 billion to construct the wall, someone will happily take it. But increasingly, major corporations are weighing potential profit against political costs.

(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).

Related Stories:

• Sam Zell: Asset Markets, Fueled by Central Bank Easing, at Risk of Major Corrections
• Sam Zell: DC Should Ignore Income Inequality, Focus on Growth
• Sam Zell: Here's How to Revive US' Start-Up Potential