President Donald Trump stunned the nation on Friday by announcing his plan to sign an executive order later in the day, officially designating English as the official language of the United States. The move reverses a Clinton-era mandate requiring federal agencies to offer services and benefits in multiple languages and marks the first time in the country’s nearly 250-year history that it will have an official language.
A signing ceremony is scheduled to take place in the Oval Office on Friday. The decision places the U.S. among 180 out of 195 countries that have formally designated an official language. Although the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence were written exclusively in English, the political momentum to officially recognize it as the nation’s language had never materialized—until now.
Last year during his campaign, Trump hinted at issuing an executive order after criticizing progressives, whom he accused of trying to erode the nation’s heritage by opposing previous efforts to designate English as the official language. “We have languages coming into our country. We don’t have one instructor in our entire nation that can speak that language,” Trump said while speaking before the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2024, Fox News reports. “These are languages—it’s the craziest thing—they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing.”
A preview of the executive order indicated that it would also recognize and celebrate non-English-speaking immigrants who legally came to the U.S. and learned the language. An official stated that making English the official language would “empower immigrants” by fostering unity through a common language.
Since taking office last month, Trump has signed at least 76 executive orders, according to Fox News. One of the most controversial involved renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America—a change that media outlets like the Associated Press refused to adopt. In response, the Trump administration revoked the AP’s White House credentials and barred its reporters from the president’s traveling press pool.
Another controversial change was the renaming of Mount McKinley, Alaska’s tallest peak, reversing its Obama-era designation as Mount Denali. The decision was not universally accepted, with Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voicing her opposition, stating, “In Alaska, it’s Denali.”
A 2021 Rasmussen poll found that 73% of Americans supported making English the official language of the U.S., while only 18% opposed it, positioning the president on strong political footing. Other aspects of his agenda, such as the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, continue to receive similarly high approval from voters.