United States Triumphal Arch

Donald Trump reportedly got the idea of building a triumphal arch after being invited by French President Emmanuel Macron to attend the Bastille Day parade on July 14, 2017. This traditional military parade in France takes place every year on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, dominated by the Arc de Triomphe. The initial design presented on October 16, 2025, was similar to London's Wellington Arch. The second, unveiled on April 16, 2026, is directly inspired by Paris's Arc de Triomphe, built between 1806 and 1836 at the initiative of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to celebrate France's war victories. In an April 2025 article titled "Washington Needs an Arch", in the conservative publication The American Mind, art critic Catesby Leigh detailed the visual effect that an arch would have on the axis of monuments on the National Mall. Leigh also observed that Washington D.C. is the "only major Western capital without a monumental arch". In an October 2025 Washington Post article titled "Trump eyes a triumphal arch to mark America's 250th anniversary", Duncan G. Stroik, an architectural professor at the University of Notre Dame and former appointee to the United States Commission on Fine Arts, called Memorial Circle "underutilized" and said he "would want it to be a monument that is architecturally sophisticated, but also something that speaks to everyone." == Development ==

On October 15, 2025, Trump showed reporters in the Oval Office a model sitting on his desk of a proposed arch that he wished to build. CBS reporter Ed O'Keefe asked him: "Who is it for?" Trump replied: "Me. It's going to be beautiful." O'Keefe asked if it would be called "The Arc de Trump", a nickname that was immediately adopted by the media. Later that evening, guests were shown three differently scaled models of the arch at a dinner in the White House's East Room for donors to the ballroom expansion. The largest version would reportedly dwarf the iconic structures closest to it, including the Lincoln Memorial. The large arch, which Anastasia Tsioulcas, writing for NPR, said was evocative of the neoclassical style favored by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, would be surmounted by two eagles and a golden winged figure variously described as an angel or a suggestion of Victory. Trump said it represented Lady Liberty. During the aforementioned dinner, Trump also stated that construction of the arch would be completed in time for the 250th anniversary of the United States. He said that it was "fully financed", and that some of the funds left over from the ballroom project would be used to fund the arch. On December 31, 2025, Trump said construction of the arch would start within two months. Nicolas Leo Charbonneau has been retained as the architect for the project. On January 23, 2026, Trump presented another design of the Independence Arch, measuring 250 feet (75 meters), one foot for every year of the independence of the United States. This would be taller than the Arc de Triomphe, which measures 164 feet (50 meters), and almost half as tall as the Washington Monument, at 555 feet (169 meters). On February 19, 2026, the advocacy group Public Citizen filed a lawsuit on behalf of three Vietnam War veterans to stop the project, arguing it had not received proper approval from Congress or appropriate independent government agencies. Construction had not yet begun. After Trump opted for the largest design presented to him, some architects who were initially supportive of an arch (including Leigh) expressed their opposition to an arch of such size at the proposed location. == References ==