JUST IN: Trump To Sign Executive Order Making English Official Language Of U.S.

President Donald Trump surprised the country on Friday by promising to sign an executive order later in the day making English the official language of the United States.

Doing so negates a Clinton-era mandate that federal agencies provide explanations of services and benefits in languages other than English, and it will be the first time in the country’s nearly 250 years that it has an official language. A signing ceremony is expected to take place on Friday in the Oval Office.

The move adds the U.S. to a list of 180 out of 195 countries that have certified their own official languages. Despite the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence being written exclusively in English, the political willpower to officialize its language was never there until now.

Last year, President Trump hinted at the possibility of an executive order after railing against progressives who he claimed sought to undermine the country’s heritage by fighting past attempts to make English its 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 signaled that it would also celebrate non-English natives who had immigrated legally and learned the language. Making English official will “empower immigrants” to unite under a common language, an official said.

Trump has signed at least 76 orders since taking office last month, according to Fox. One of the most controversial related to the redesignation of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, a change which media outlets like the Associated Press refused to adopt. The Trump administration in turn pulled the outlet’s White House credentials and excluded its reporters from the president’s traveling press pool.

Another change that wasn’t universally well-received was the renaming of Mount McKinley, the tallest Alaskan peak, from its Obama-era name, Mount Denali. Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) objected at the time, saying in a statement, “In Alaska, it’s Denali.”

According to a 2021 Rasmussen poll, 73% of Americans supported making English the official language of the U.S., while only 18% disagreed, putting President Trump on solid political ground. Other parts of his agenda, including the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, continue to receive similarly high marks from voters.