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President Trump took a defiant victory lap in the House chamber on Tuesday night, using his address to a joint session of Congress to promote the flurry of drastic changes to domestic and foreign policy that his administration has made in just the first six weeks.
Delivering the longest address to Congress in modern presidential history, Mr. Trump reprised many of the themes that animated his campaign for president and spent little time unveiling new policies, as presidents traditionally have done on these occasions. He spoke for roughly one hour 40 minutes.
“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in four years or eight years — and we are just getting started,” he said.
Democrats lodged protests throughout the evening, with one representative getting kicked out and others holding signs in silent opposition. But Mr. Trump argued that it was the Democrats who left him a country besieged by crises and that his administration was working to clean them up.
One day after Mr. Trump temporarily suspended the delivery of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, he signaled a willingness to reset the relationship. The president said he appreciated a message from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in which he said his country was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.”
The new posture comes days after Mr. Trump’s explosive Oval Office meeting with Mr. Zelensky, which resulted in the Ukrainian leader hastily departing the White House without signing a deal for the United States to have access to Ukraine’s revenue for rare earth minerals. In his message, which was posted on social media on Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky said he was ready to sign the deal, a top priority for Mr. Trump.
On Tuesday night, Mr. Trump also said he had had “serious” discussions with Russia and they have signaled they also are “ready for peace.”
“It’s time to stop this madness,” he said. “It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end the senseless war. If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides.”
Mr. Trump widened his trade wars on Tuesday when he instituted sweeping tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China. Despite the markets’ plunging in response to his actions, Mr. Trump said he would not budge, dismissing the reaction as “a little disturbance.” He said more tariffs would go into effect on April 2.
“Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it’s our turn to start using them against those other countries,” he said.
Mr. Trump also re-upped his attacks on federal workers, vowing to “reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy.”
“Any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately,” he said.
Mr. Trump could announce a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada as soon as Wednesday. But the president made no mention of that in his speech on Tuesday night.
“Whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them,” he said. “That’s reciprocal, back and forth.”
Mr. Trump is always in need of an opponent, and for now, it appears former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is still in his cross hairs. Even after defeating Mr. Biden in November, Mr. Trump mentioned his predecessor’s administration more than a dozen times and called Mr. Biden “the worst president in American history.”
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