Donald Trump is small-time. Sure, he's loud and gesticulating, but his vision for a Trump presidency is pure small-ball.

Trump kicked off his campaign promising voters that he'd build a border wall, a "great" one. He's the guy to do it, he says, because "nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I'll build them very inexpensively."

This is strangely myopic. The president doesn't need to know how to build walls, he just needs to get one built. Yet, Trump is focused, very narrowly, on his experience as a builder. To Trump, it's not that his experience translates into the leadership qualities of a president. No, Trump seems to think America needs someone who knows how to build walls, or other structures.

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In 1980, Ronald Reagan campaigned on building a 600-ship Navy. He didn't tell voters he knew how to build "great" ships at a good price. Reagan was articulating a vision. Reagan's 600-ship Navy was a vision for a robust American military capable of staring down the Soviet Bear. (Yes, Reagan didn't complete the 600-ship Navy, but he rebuilt the military and defeated the Soviet Union. That's the point; he saw his vision through without losing himself in the weeds.)

Trump's myopia has set the debate on just one aspect of immigration. We're not talking about assimilation or H-1B visas that operate like indentured servitude. We're just talking about one project, a wall. Instead of Trump's project-centered idea, we need a conservative vision to end illegal immigration and support the immigration of the type of individuals eager to assimilate and build America.

This has been a problem for Trump before. When he feigned running for governor of New York in 2014 Trump claimed he could fix the Tappan Zee Bridge "for peanuts." The bridge is scheduled to be replaced at a cost of $4 billion, but Trump would find better designers who would know how to repair it, rather than replace it. "Nobody builds better than I build," he said.

The new Tappan Zee Bridge isn't overpriced because the governor is a bad negotiator. It's overpriced because a system of liberal policies drives up the cost of building anything in New York, including the bridge.

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New York is the only state in the country to have a Scaffold Law. Propped up by trial lawyers, it's a relic that imposes absolute liability on builders for any elevation-related injuries. If a drunk worker falls, the builder is responsible. It drives up the cost of insurance and adds 10 percent to the cost of every project in the state, including the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

Conservatives, at the state and federal level, need a champion to rail against this kind of waste and over-regulation, but Trump didn't have the insight to see the real problem. Trump could have talked about saving New Yorkers' money not just on the Tappan Zee Bridge but every day, in every project. The real problem was ignored as he expounded upon his ability to build things well and work with good architects.

Of course, business experience can translate to the government. An executive needs to inspire and direct his vision for the company. But Trump focuses on to-dos rather than a vision.

Trump's insights, though, don't extend far beyond his own direct experiences. Over the weekend, he tweeted, "Can you envision Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton negotiating with 'El Chapo', the Mexican drug lord who escaped from prison? .... Trump, however, would kick his ass!" [emphasis added]. In a negotiation? Why?

Maybe it was some kind of strained metaphor. But Trump is stuck on business platitudes that don't relate to the presidency.

On ISIS, Trump said, "I'm in competition with them. They just built a hotel in Syria." That's a strange way to talk about a terrorist group immolating people and running slave markets.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina hasn't said that because she knows computers she's the best candidate to defend the country against Chinese cyber-attacks. That's because the president shouldn't be writing code to protect computers and the president shouldn't be poring over blueprints for a border wall and personally reviewing vendor contracts.

Trump is accomplished, but his vision is small-time. He can't see the forest for the wall he's building.

Chris Covucci is an attorney and Republican strategist in New York. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.