In His Longest Speech Yet, Trump Claims US Economy is Booming
US President Donald Trump delivered his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday (24/02), highlighting economic gains and reduced immigration, as well as praising the deployment of the National Guard and the US men’s ice hockey team.
In his longest speech to date, which largely focused on domestic issues, Trump told the US Congress that ‘our country has come back’ with an economy that is ‘booming like never before’.
He claimed that ‘US oil production has increased by more than 600,000 barrels per day’ and that ‘natural gas production is at an all-time high because I kept my promise to drill, baby, drill’, which was met with periodic applause from Republican members of parliament.
Regarding immigration, Trump boasted that the United States now has the ‘strongest and safest border in American history’, claiming that previously ‘millions and millions of illegal immigrants’ had entered the country unchecked.
In what appeared to be a demonstration of how strongly he believes his country is ‘winning’, Trump welcomed the US men’s ice hockey team to the chamber, which had just won a gold medal at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy, and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to goalkeeper Connor Hellebuyck.
Trump condemns Iran
Turning to foreign policy, Trump called Iran the ‘number one sponsor of terrorism in the world’ and said that he would ‘never’ allow it to acquire nuclear weapons.
‘They are already developing missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases abroad,’ he said, before claiming – without providing evidence – that the Iranian military is ‘working to build a missile that can soon reach the United States’.
Amid rising tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, Trump insisted: ‘My choice is to resolve this issue through diplomacy’.
Elsewhere, Trump praised the ‘bright new beginning for Venezuela’ after US special forces captured President Nicolas Maduro in a raid in January, which Trump said had impressed world leaders.
While Trump received periodic standing ovations from his Republican supporters, Democratic members in the chamber generally remained seated. They only stood for the hockey team and when Trump asked all members of parliament to stand if they agreed that ‘the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal immigrants’.
Democrats confront Trump
Around 50 seats in the chamber remained empty as a number of Democratic members chose to boycott the speech, while some of those who did attend heckled Trump as he spoke.
After reiterating his claim that he had ‘ended eight wars’, US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, from Michigan, shouted: ‘That’s a lie’. And when Trump praised the latest ICE deployment in Minnesota, Representative Ilhan Omar shouted: ‘You have killed American citizens’.
Earlier in the speech, Democratic Representative Al Green held up a sign that read: ‘Black people are not monkeys!’ in reference to a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama that had been shared by Trump. He was then escorted out of the chamber.
With Trump’s crackdown on immigration and the release of the Epstein files still fresh in the memory, a number of Democratic members of the US Congress invited guests to highlight both issues.
US Senator Chuck Schumer, from New York, invited the mother of a student detained by immigration authorities, while Representative Maxine Dexter, from Oregon, gave her seat to Epstein case survivor Lisa Phillips.
Phillips said that she ‘just hoped for some kind of acknowledgement’ from the president in his speech and insisted: ‘We will not stop until all the files are released’.
The article was first published in English
Adapted by Ayu Purwaningsih
(ita/ita)