Trump defends his ‘unrelenting’ policies in address to Congress: ‘We’re just getting started’

Were it not for the solemn setting of Washington’s Capitol Hill, Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday could have passed for a campaign rally. The president resorted to his usual lies and exaggerations to launch a triumphalist speech six weeks after his return to the White House. Trump proclaimed, as he did on Inauguration Day, the beginning of a “golden age” in the United States. He asked Congress for a tax cut and funding for deportations and defended Elon Musk’s cuts, the trade war he launched this week, his crusade against irregular immigration, and the U.S. policy shift on Ukraine. About the latter, he assured Congress that he had received in the form of a letter from Volodymyr Zelenskiy the same message the Ukrainian president tweeted hours before, in which he insisted in his willingness to negotiate for an end to the war with Russia. Trump also claimed the Panama Canal and said that he will get Greenland.

“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in four years or eight years — and we are just getting started,” he said with that characteristic love of his for hyperbole, in a session of high tension and polarization, in which half the hemicycle cheered him while another half protested.

For Trump, it was a triumphant return to a Congress that impeached him twice during his first term. Five years after his last speech and four years after his supporters forced their way onto that stage on January 6, 2021, to prevent his electoral defeat from being certified, the Republican president returned this Tuesday to a Capitol in which his party has a majority in both houses. The fact that he was the first convicted president to address Congress did not sour his celebration. He presented himself once again as the victim of political persecution.

“America is back. Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the Golden Age of America. From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country,” he began. “The American dream is surging — bigger and better than ever before. The American dream is unstoppable, and 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 continued grandiloquently.

“Over the past six weeks, I have signed nearly 100 executive orders and taken more than 400 executive actions to restore common sense, safety, optimism, and wealth all across our wonderful land. The people elected me to do the job, and I am doing it. In fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency is the most successful in the history of our nation,” he continued to exaggerate without restraint, placing himself above even George Washington, the father of the country. In his oppositional style, which is in his nature, Trump called Joe Biden the worst U.S. president in history, a label that a group of historians actually gave Trump after his first term between 2016 and 2020.

The Republican continued to brag about the number of executive orders and other provisions he has passed while proclaiming himself a champion of deregulation. He also celebrated his withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in the United States and the declaration of English as the official language of the United States. And he also mentioned some of the measures his administration has approved as part of his offensive against diversity, equality and inclusion, many of them fueled by transphobia.

Zelenskiy’s letter

Well over an hour had passed since he began his speech when Trump spoke about foreign policy. He began with his imperialist delusions, claiming the Panama Canal for the U.S. and the annexation of Greenland: “I think we’ll get it one way or another.” He then criticized the withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden and announced the arrest and surrender of the “main terrorist responsible” for that day’s bombing, whom, he said, is on his way to the United States to face justice. He then turned to the Middle East, and almost an hour and a half into his speech, he addressed the war in Ukraine.

“I am working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians and Russians have been needlessly killed or wounded in this horrific and brutal conflict, with no end in sight,” he said, again drawing on inaccurate figures on the aid provided to Ukraine by the United States and Europe. Although perhaps aware that he was lying, he put a “maybe” before the figure of $350 billion supposedly provided.

After that, he announced that he had received a letter from Ukrainian president Zelenskiy, in which he says that he is ready to sit down to negotiate an end to the war and sign the agreement on minerals and security as soon as the United States wants. From what Trump pointed out, the content of Zelenskiy’s missive is, verbatim, what the Ukrainian leader had tweeted hours earlier.

“Earlier today, I received an important letter from president Zelenskiy of Ukraine. The letter reads: ‘Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.’ Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians, he said. ‘My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. We really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time,’” Trump recounted.

The letter —or tweet— comes just four days after Trump and his vice president, J. D. Vance, humilitated Zelenskiy in the Oval Office of the White House in an unprecedented episode. “I appreciate that he sent this letter. We’ve had serious discussions with Russia, and we’ve received strong signals that they’re ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end the senseless war. If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides,” said Trump, whose tack in favor of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, has set off alarm bells across Europe.

The economy

“Among my very highest priorities is to rescue our economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to working families,” said Trump, whose address before Congress came after he triggered the biggest stock market drop of the year with his tariffs on Mexico and Canada. The U.S. economy is losing steam because of some of his measures: inflation expectations have soared, consumer confidence has fallen sharply, consumer spending has slowed, and the trade deficit has shattered records.

“We inherited, from the last administration, an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare,” the Republican said. It was a lie: his government inherited an economy growing at a good pace, with a very low unemployment rate, record job creation and inflation already close to the 2% target. Nevertheless, Trump went on to say that under Biden the United States suffered inflation that was “perhaps” the worst in the country’s history, another lie.

“As president, I am fighting every day to reverse this damage and make America affordable again,” he assured on the same day that several companies warned that the tariffs he imposed will drive up prices for American consumers. “Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control, and we are working hard to get it back down,” he added. The reality is that the Trump administration expects prices to continue to rise this year.

The measure to fight inflation that the president highlighted the most during his speech was the declaration of “a national energy emergency,” which he made on the first day of his presidency, and his recipe of drilling for oil (although hydrocarbon production broke records under his predecessor). “My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea, and other nations want to be our partner — with trillions of dollars being spent by them. It will truly be spectacular,” he said. “Later this week, I will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the U.S.,” he added.

Trump also announced his intent to repeal the microprocessor factory investment aid law passed under Biden, and instead promised incentives to promote domestic shipbuilding.

In defense of tariffs

Trump insisted that he will continue to impose tariffs, especially what he calls reciprocal tariffs, which he wants to apply from April 2, not on the 1st of the month because it is April Fools’ Day. “I am a very superstitious person,” he justified himself, before launching his threat: “Whatever other countries tariff us, we will tariff them in return. That’s reciprocal — back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax them. If they use non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their markets, then we will use non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our markets. We will take in trillions and trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.” He then made the unsubstantiated claim that the U.S. pays multi-billion dollar subsidies to Mexico and Canada, surely in reference to the trade deficit.

Trump also said that Apple has announced “investments of 500 billion.” It was unclear whether the president was also lying or whether Apple CEO Tim Cook had managed to deceive Trump by passing off his spending forecasts for the next few years, including current and personnel expenses, as investments.

The president praised Musk, who was in attendance, and defended the cuts the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has undertaken. Trump also called on Congress to pass the tax cuts he promised on the campaign trail, including tax breaks for tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits.

His supporters interrupted him again and again with standing applause, which made the speech go on for an hour and 40 minutes, the longest such address ever delivered. Democrats displayed signs and placards against Musk and accusing Trump of lying. Decades ago, the president’s address to Congress was an event with a certain bipartisan component, but those times are long gone. Trump tried to put on a show in a somewhat medieval style, naming a 13-year-old boy with a brain tumor a secret agent and admitting the orphan of an officer killed in the line of duty to West Point, the military academy.

Shutting down the border

The president boasted of what he considers one of the major accomplishments of his first weeks in office, again taking the opportunity to criticize Biden. “Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history — and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded,” he said. “The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation to secure the border, but it turned out that all we really needed was a new president,” he reiterated.

Trump insisted on his xenophobic discourse linking immigration with crime, exploiting the pain of some of the victims of crimes committed by immigrants. And he assured that he maintains plans to deport immigrants: “I have sent Congress a detailed funding request laying out exactly how we will eliminate these threats, protect our homeland, and complete the largest deportation operation in American history, larger even than current recordholder Dwight D. Eisenhower — a moderate man but someone who believed very strongly in borders. Americans expect Congress to send me this funding without delay, so I can sign it into law,” he said.