(Feb 25): US President Donald Trump offered a strident defence of his administration and economic record, declaring the nation is “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before” in a State of the Union address that contained few new policy announcements.
The president on Tuesday (Feb 24) staged his version of a pep rally for a beleaguered nation, celebrating Olympic victories and military heroism while pledging better fortunes for the public — all while attacking his rival Democrats. The task for Trump is to reverse voter sentiment, with polls showing Americans anxious about the economy and sceptical of his policies ahead of November’s midterm elections.
“We have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages,” he said in a speech that lasted a record one hour and 47 minutes. “You’ve seen nothing yet.”
The speech comes at a pivotal moment for Trump’s presidency as he grasps for a broad reset and looks to consolidate Republican support. The president is confronting falling approval ratings, a number of foreign policy flashpoints — including the threat of military action against Iran — and a setback to his signature tariff policy, which was struck down by the US Supreme Court.
“Today, our border is secure, our spirit is restored. Inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast,” Trump said. “The roaring economy is roaring like never before and our enemies are scared. Our military and police are stacked, and America is respected again, perhaps like never before.”
Trump heaped the event with American patriotism, welcoming Olympic gold medallists and handing out medals to military members. Trump, throughout points of his address, took moments to highlight military veterans, particularly those from the so-called Greatest Generation who fought in World War II and the Korean War.
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Trump tucked in modest policy proposals throughout his speech, including a pledge that the federal government would match as much as US$1,000 in retirement savings for workers without access to 401(k)s, starting next year. A White House official said the president’s retirement-savings proposal would be carried out under an existing programme, known as Saver’s Match, enacted in a law passed under his predecessor Joe Biden.
He also called on Congress to pass laws banning members and their families from purchasing individual, publicly traded stocks and said he wanted lawmakers to ban the issuance of commercial driver's licences to undocumented migrants. It’s not clear whether any of those measures will pass and Trump did not explain why he was backing a stock trading ban for Congress that he previously opposed.
Trump largely refrained from using what’s likely to be his largest television audience of the year to seek bipartisan consensus. Instead, he sought to bait Democrats and put his opponents on the defensive with moments of dramatic confrontation.
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The president used his stock-ban push to taunt former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who opposed such legislation. Some Democrats responded by calling the president corrupt. He said the high cost of health care was “caused by you", pointing to the Democratic side of the aisle.
Trump similarly drew jeers from Democrats when he accused Somalis of conducting elaborate fraud schemes in Minnesota, the rationale he used for a migrant crackdown there that drew widespread backlash after the killing of two American citizens. When Trump asked members to stand if they agreed that the government’s “first duty” was to protect US citizens and “not illegal aliens", Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who represents a district at the heart of the controversy, responded by shouting that Trump has “killed Americans".
Trump demanded that Democrats restore full operations at the Department of Homeland Security, from which they are withholding funds in a bid to force reforms to the president’s immigration policies.
One of the night’s more poignant moments came when Trump awarded a Purple Heart to National Guard Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, who was shot in Washington last November, and the family of fellow Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, who died in the same attack. The Guard deployments have been controversial and broadly opposed by Democrats.
The exchanges between Trump and Democrats were a marked departure from earlier in the speech, when the president sought to project a more unifying theme by hailing the Olympic champion US men’s hockey team as the players entered the House chamber wearing their gold medals. He also paid tribute to George “Buddy” Taggart, a World War II veteran who will turn 100 years old this year.
And Trump offered a bellicose warning to Iran, arguing that its government is “again pursuing their sinister nuclear ambitions” less than a year after a US military strike that he had previously claimed resulted in the “obliteration” of its key nuclear sites. Trump’s representatives are due to meet with Iranian officials in Geneva for another round of talks on Thursday.
“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy — but one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon,” the president said.
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In a bid to raise pressure on Tehran, the US has been amassing military forces in the region in preparation. But Trump gave no signal on whether a strike was imminent.
Trump also championed interventions in the Western Hemisphere following a series of military strikes on alleged narco-trafficking boats and the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. Trump hailed the new government in Venezuela as a partner and said the US had received 80 million barrels of oil from Caracas.
Trump also awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to a helicopter pilot who took part in the brazen Maduro raid and who was shot four times.
Tuesday’s address also came on the four-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump reiterated his desire to bring that conflict — one he said he would end on his first day back in power — to a close.
Trump said he inherited “a nation in crisis, with a stagnant economy”. He said in his first year of his second term, “the roaring economy is roaring like never before.”
The US economy is growing and payrolls rose in January by the most in more than a year. But that followed a historically weak year that saw only 181,000 jobs added and while wages have risen faster than inflation overall, they haven’t kept pace with costs for many goods and services.
The president overstated the inflation he inherited — it’s no longer at “record levels” but was down to 3% on an annual basis when he took office — and he blamed Democrats for high prices that have remained elevated since before the pandemic. Trump cited the decline in prices for eggs, gasoline and other items as the cost of electricity and other essentials rises.
Many Americans are dour about the president’s stewardship of the country. Some 60% of Americans disapproved of Trump’s job performance in a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released on Sunday. The president’s approval rating hit a new low of 26% among independents, according to a new CNN survey.
Trump repeatedly sought to blame political opponents and the establishment for his political troubles, including in a critique of the Supreme Court for striking down his global tariffs. As Trump assailed the court’s decision, half of the justices who ruled against him sat in the audience, silently watching.
Still, he gave no indication he would change course, saying he would move ahead with restoring his broad import taxes through other authorities. He expressed confidence foreign countries would honour their trade agreements and even predicted that the US would take in so much revenue that it would “substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax.”
Tariff revenue pales in comparison to income taxes and is paid by importers and often passed along to US consumers.
Trump’s remarks and the Democratic response offer to set the tone for the midterm elections which threaten to sweep away Republicans’ grip on both chambers of Congress. Rival Democrats have been buoyed as voters’ views of Trump’s handling of the economy slide, fuelled by anxiety over high prices and his tariffs.
To reverse that narrative, the president highlighted efforts to boost jobs, draw trillions in foreign and private investment pledges and his efforts to lower costs, including on prescription drugs, as well as his Trump accounts for young people.
Trump has also urged Republicans to campaign on last year’s tax-and-spending package — and on Tuesday cited numerous measures, including the provisions for no taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security, as well as making the interest on auto loans tax deductible.
The president also touted an effort to press tech companies to shoulder more of the burden for energy costs and to prevent the boom in artificial intelligence from raising utility costs for US households.
“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” Trump said. “They can build their own power plants as part of their factory so that no one’s prices will go up and, in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community and very substantially down.”
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