The airport was named after John Foster Dulles when it opened in Northern Virginia in 1962.
DULLES, Va. โ A Congressman has introduced a bill to rename Washington Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia after President Donald Trump, as the House GOP rounds out its first workweek with Trump as the 47th president.ย
Rep. Addison McDowell, a North Carolina Republican introduced, H.R. 691 on Thursday. The bill, “to designate Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia as ‘Donald J. Trump International Airport,'” was referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. ย
A bill to rename Dulles after President Trump had been introduced in March 2024 by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), but with a Democratic president and a Democrat-controlled senate, the bill faced an uncertain future and died in committee.ย
Now, with the Republicans gaining control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in January, a bill to rename Dulles Airport to Trump Airport has a much clearer path to becoming law.ย
The bill has four Republican cosponsors, including Rep. Reschenthaler. The other cosponsors were representatives from Texas, West Virginia and Georgia.ย
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) represents the district that includes Dulles Airport. On Saturday, Subramanyam criticized Republican efforts to rename Dulles Airport after President Trump, urging a focus on real issues like supporting working families and schools.
โItโs disappointing, but entirely unsurprising, that House Republicans would rather focus their efforts on renaming airports to honor their dear leader than tackling the real issues facing Americans,โ Subramanyam, stated.
The airport was named after John Foster Dulles when it opened in Northern Virginia in 1962. Dulles served as President Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of state form 1953 until his death in 1959, overseeing a buildup of the United States’ overseas alliances and support anti-Communist regimes during the Cold War.ย
There are six major airports renamed after U.S. Presidents, although all six had changed their names after their namesake presidents had left office. John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York was the first that had been renamed after a U.S. President, just weeks after the 35th president was assassinated in 1963.ย
Here’s a list of the six major airports named after U.S. Presidents, and the years they were renamed:
– Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita, Kan. (2014)
– Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Ark. (2012)ย
– Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Mich. (1999)
– Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Crystal City, Va. (1998)ย
– George H.W. Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas (1997)
– John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (1963)
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