The speech broke the record for longest presidential address to Congress,clocking in at about an hour and 40 minutes. Trump traversed almost all the executive orders and policies from his first 44 days back in power – from migrant deportations to withdrawing from international treaties and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America – and declared “we are just getting started”.
“Our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed and perhaps will never witness again,” he said with customary hyperbole. And though his electoral college margin was much slimmer than Barack Obama’s in 2008,he again claimed to have “a mandate like has not been seen in many decades”.
Elon Musk gestures as President Donald Trump name-checks him during his address to the US Congress.Credit:AP
On trade,Trump defended his deployment of tariffs,including those on US neighbours Mexico and Canada,which came into effect earlier in the day,and asserted they served a higher purpose beyond punishing other nations for their economic policies or border transgressions.
“Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs – they’re about protecting the soul of our country,” Trump said. “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again ... There may be a little disturbance,but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”
In a development that may have implications for the AUKUS defence pact,under whichAustralia is due to buy American-made nuclear-powered submarines,Trump announced his intention to resurrect the US commercial and military shipbuilding industry.
He said he would create a new “office of shipbuilding” in the White House and “offer special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America,where it belongs”.
Democrats held up signs in protest of Donald Trump and his agenda.Credit:Bloomberg
Trump revealed the US was receiving into custody an alleged Islamic terrorist,Mohammad Sharifullah,who he said had orchestrated the2021 bombing of Kabul airport in Afghanistan during the chaotic US withdrawal.
Thirteen US service members and 170 Afghans were killed in the attack. Trump thanked the government of Pakistan for “helping arrest this monster”,and said Sharifullah was being brought to the US to be charged.
The speech was packed with shoutouts to guests in the gallery – family members of slain police officers or victims of horrific crimes committed by illegal immigrants.
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Trump also returned to some of his favourite international preoccupations:reclaiming the Panama Canal and taking control of Greenland – the large,sparsely populated Danish territory that sits mostly to the north of the Arctic Circle.
“If you choose,we welcome you into the United States of America,” Trump said,before adding:“We need it for international world security,and I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other,we’re going to get it.”
The speech recounted Trump’s social reforms and his war on so-called wokeness,includingridding the federal government of diversity hiring practices,banning transgender people from the military and declaring there are only two genders – male and female.
“Our country will be woke no longer,” he said. “Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone,and we feel so much better for it.”
Credit:Matt Golding
All told,Trump set out an expansive and grandiose agenda to restore what he called “the righteous cause of American liberty”. Buoyed by his comfortable election win – which he again detailed at the start of his speech – Trump repeated his belief that he was saved from the assassin’s bullet in Pennsylvania by God,for the purpose of restoring America’s lost glory.
“Americans have given us a mandate for bold and profound change,” he said. “This will be our greatest era.”
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