The president of the United States, Donald Trump, is going to erect a statue on the grounds of the White House, in one more attempt to adapt the history of the country and the continent to his particular version.
According to the newspaper The Washington Postthe statue will be located in the southern area of the land. He will reconstruct an effigy of the explorer presented by then-President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s in Baltimore and thrown into the waters of that port as an act of protest in 2020, during the movement’s demonstrations in defense of racial equality. Black Lives Matter.
A group of Italian-American businessmen and politicians took over the remains of the destroyed statue and restored it, with the help of non-governmental organizations and federal funds.
The White House has not confirmed the alleged plans, but Trump has spoken very glowingly in the past about the sailor who, in search of the spice islands in Asia, stumbled upon the American continent. “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,” spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “He will continue to be honored as such by President Donald Trump.”
Trump included the explorer in 2021 on a list of historical figures he wants to honor in the National Garden of American Heroes that he has proposed as part of the commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States. These figures, he says, embody “the American spirit of daring and defiance, excellence and adventure, bravery and confidence, loyalty and love.”
In 2024, during his electoral campaign, the current president promised to recover the Columbus Day celebration, which several states in the country commemorate as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In 2021, Democrat Joe Biden became the first American president to observe that holiday under its new name. But last October Trump signed a presidential proclamation to recognize Columbus as the “original American hero” and recover the holiday named after the Genoese explorer who put himself at the service of the crown of Castile to launch the expedition of three caravels that made landfall in present-day Santo Domingo in 1492.
“We’re back, Italians. Okay? We love Italians,” Trump declared after signing that proclamation. He also hinted that the recovery of the figure of the sailor would help the Republican Party attract votes among the Italian-American community and be able to achieve good results in the mid-term elections next November: “The Italians are going to be very happy with this. Remember when you go to the polls that I recovered Columbus Day.”
The placement of the statue does not serve Trump only to ingratiate himself with the Italian vote. It is also part of his campaign for federal institutions to adopt his version of history and dispense with what he considers a “corrosive ideology”: public recognition of historical abuses perpetrated against minorities, from the plundering and acculturation of American Indian tribes to the slave trade.
Likewise, it is included in his efforts to adapt the aesthetics of the White House to his personal taste. Despite the protests of historians and organizations specialized in the protection of historic buildings or public property, he has demolished the East wing of the presidential residence to the ground, on whose land he plans to build a ballroom, which he began by declaring would cost 200 million dollars and which is now already budgeted at 400.
Trump has also embossed the Oval Office with gold ornaments, he has decorated the hallway that connects the West Wing with the residence area with a “presidential gallery” with images of his predecessors and himself, in which Biden is represented with a photo of an automatic signing machine. He has also replaced the Rose Garden, which was the pride of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, with a cement patio and has redesigned the famous Lincoln Room bathroom, now lined in marble.
Beyond the White House, he has announced a , of whose board of administration he was named president after his inauguration and without counting on Congress. The works will last at least two years and it seems that they will include almost complete demolition. As he noted, he plans to take advantage of “the steel structure” and “part of the marble.”
In addition, he intends to build a triumphal arch at one of the entrances to Washington to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary. According to the plans that have circulated about this project, the gigantic arch would cover the views of the Lincoln Memorial, among the most iconic in the city, and would dwarf those of other symbolic buildings in the capital, from the Washington Monument to the Capitol itself.
