Donald Trump tells America he is ‘just getting started’ in speech to congress

Donald Trump’s address to congress set out the decisive break with history posed by his administration and its charting of a bold new direction for the country in global, economic and cultural terms.

US President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of congress. Picture: AP

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Donald Trump has declared “America is back” in a speech to a joint session of congress capturing the decisive break with history posed by his administration and its charting of a bold new direction for the country in global, economic and cultural terms.

Only six weeks after taking office, the US President doubled down on his change agenda as delivering the “greatest and most successful era in the history of our country”, and declaring he had achieved more in 43 days than most administrations across their entire terms.

“We are just getting started,” he said, noting he had taken more than 400 executive actions since January 20.

In a speech met with howls of protest from his political opponents – and which saw Democratic congressman Al Green removed from the chamber – Mr Trump talked up the opening month of his presidency as the “most successful in the history of our nation”.

“What makes it even more impressive is that, you know who number two is? George Washington. How about that?” he said.

Speaking for more than 100 minutes, Mr Trump provided a strident defence of his economic agenda and use of tariffs as a response to a global trading system that had seen America “ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth”.

Insulating himself from criticism, Mr Trump attributed the nation’s economic woes to Joe Biden and accused his predecessor of leaving behind an “economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare” that had pushed “the necessities of life out of reach for millions of Americans”.

His new “American First” agenda would use tariffs to make the country rich again while attracting new investment and jobs. “If you don’t make your product in America … under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff,” he said. “Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades and now it’s our turn to start using them against those other countries.”

His reciprocal tariffs would commence on April 2, generating “trillions and trillions of dollars” while creating “jobs like we have never seen before”, with his 25 per cent tariffs on Mexico and Canada a mechanism to stop fentanyl from pouring over US borders.

US President Donald Trump holds up an executive order that renames a wildlife sanctuary in honour of the late Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12 year-old girl who was murdered by two undocumented migrants. Picture: AFP

Mr Trump said his policies had already attracted $US1.7 trillion ($2.71 trillion) of investment to America while his tariffs on steel and aluminium would help revive US industry. There was no sign he was planning on easing his trade war, despite Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatening retaliation through the implementation of his own 25 per cent tariffs against $US155bn ($247bn) worth of American goods.

The US President acknowledged his tariffs might require a “little bit of an adjustment period”, although he insisted inflation under his administration would be reduced through steps to cut the cost of energy and ending wasteful government spending.

With Elon Musk – the world’s richest man and leader of the Department of Government Efficiency – watching on, Mr Trump ran through a shopping list of wasteful government spending programs he was ending, including the allocation of $US8m ($12.7m) to “making mice transgender”.

“This is real,” he said.

Promoting his plan to boost economic growth, Mr Trump outlined his objective to extend “permanent income tax cuts all across the board” and slash red tape by directing that “for every one new regulation, 10 old regulations must be eliminated”.

In the realm of foreign policy, Mr Trump said he was working tirelessly to stop the war in Ukraine after freezing US military aid to Kyiv. But he did not outline the next steps to secure a negotiated settlement after his public row with Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House Oval Office on Saturday (AEDT).

The US President revealed he had received a letter from the Ukrainian leader and quoted from it at length, with Mr Zelensky having written that he was now “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer”.

“Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians,” Mr Trump said, quoting from the letter. “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership, to get a peace that lasts.”

Mr Trump argued he was leading a “commonsense revolution that is now – because of us – sweeping the entire world”. He listed the key initiatives he was championing aimed at course-correcting the social fabric of America.

These included restoring the integrity of the US border and upholding law and order across the country, with Mr Trump having signed an executive order requiring a “mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer”.

“Tonight, I’m asking congress to pass that policy into permanent law,” he said.

Mr Trump also appealed for congress to approve spending for the “largest deportation operation in American history”. He said 21 million people had poured over the borders in the past four years and that many were “murderers, human traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world”.

“We are getting them out,” he said.

More broadly, Mr Trump was removing the “poison of critical race theory from our public schools” and banning “men from playing women’s sports”, while ending of the “tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and, indeed, the private sector”.

He had the US withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, ended Joe Biden’s “Green New Scam” and forced federal employees to return to the office, while freezing all new federal hiring, regulations and foreign aid.

Mr Trump said young people would be protected from toxic transgender ideologies, and he called on congress to pass legislation “permanently banning and criminalising sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in their own body”.

“Our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you,” he said.

“Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone. It’s gone. And we feel so much better for it, don’t we?”

He concluded the address by saying he was “saved by God to make America great again” in a reference to the failed attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, in the lead-up to the November 2024 election.

“I believe that,” he said.

“Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers, made the most extraordinary sacrifices and did whatever it took to defend our children, our country and freedom.

“This will be our greatest era. With God’s help over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher. And we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilisation ever to exist on the face of this Earth.”