As Republicans continue to press against LGBTQ rights, President-elect Donald Trump promised Sunday to “stop the transgender lunacy” on the first day of his presidency. Republicans are expected to control both chambers of Congress and the White House.
“I will issue executive orders to stop child sex mutilation, remove transgender people from the military, and remove them from our elementary, middle, and high schools,” the president-elect declared during a gathering for young conservatives in Phoenix, Arizona.
“It will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” he added, vowing to “keep men out of women’s sports.”
Trump reiterated his promises to regain US control of the Panama Canal and pledged strict measures against “migrant crime” while addressing the AmericaFest conference in one of the battleground states he won in the November election.
Since Democratic and Republican-controlled states have taken opposing stances on subjects like medical care and which publications on the subject are permitted in public or school libraries, transgender issues have become a hot topic in US politics in recent years.
When the US Congress passed its annual defence budget last week, it included a clause that would prevent financing for certain gender-affirming care for military members’ transgender children.
Trump made bold promises for his second term in what amounted to a victory lap speech on Sunday.
He also painted a bleak picture of the four years before it, during which he was president under Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he defeated in the 2024 election.
Referring to his inauguration, Trump declared, “On January 20, the United States will turn the page forever on four long, horrible years of failure, incompetence, and national decline, and we will inaugurate a new era of peace, prosperity, and national greatness.”
He used the phrase “Golden Age” and added, “I will end the war in Ukraine. I swear that I will avert World War III and put an end to the turmoil in the Middle East.”
He declared, “I can declare with pride that America is entering a golden age.”
Nearly three years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the president-elect has yet to openly outline his proposals for bringing peace to the Middle East or Ukraine.
However, Trump claimed on Sunday that the Panamanians “haven’t treated us fairly” in the running of the Panama Canal, using the same kind of aggressive rhetoric that he occasionally employed even against US friends in the past.
He had previously called the fees for using the canal, whose construction was started by France and finished by the United States, “ridiculous.”
Additionally, he stated on Sunday that “we will demand” that the canal be returned to the United States “in full, quickly, and without question” if the tenets of the contract from the 1970s that granted Panama complete authority over it are not upheld.
The important Central American canal is vital to US and global trade, with thousands of ships passing through it each.
However, it was unclear if Trump meant to put more than just verbal pressure on the authorities of Panama.
