President Donald Trump may have much to say on a great number of topics tonight when he delivers his postponed State of the Union speech. But many listeners, perhaps including the woman who will be seated directly behind Trump, will be listening closely for comments on a single subject: “the wall.”

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is to blame for the address not being delivered last month. In a demonstration of her political muscle, she refused to allow the speech to be delivered during the just-ended partial shutdown of federal government.

That ended only after an agreement between the White House and Pelosi to re-open agencies that had been closed for more than a month in a dispute over funding for new barriers to block illegal immigration across our border with Mexico. The deal was to provide three weeks of funding for the agencies, during which the White House and Democrat leaders would negotiate some agreement regarding the barriers.

Trump has said he wants $5.7 billion for “the wall.” Pelosi has offered $1. And, with the three-week truce roughly half over, it appears there has been little or no progress on a compromise.

Clearly, then, what happens next will be on many minds tonight. Trump will use the occasion to outline his position and, no doubt, the official Democrat response will offer that party’s reasons for rejecting it.

This just will not work. Politics is supposed to be the art of compromise, but there has been precious little of that seen in the current stalemate. Let us hope the president offers a framework for a solution and that Pelosi accepts it. A solution need not be terribly complicated. Millions of Americans recognize that — and wonder why both sides in the political duel cannot seem to understand it too.