President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to rename the Pentagon the Department of War, a move that could cost taxpayers more than $1 billion, according to reports.
The order, signed on Friday, changes the name of the Department of Defence to the Department of War to signal that America has “the strongest military,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Politico warned in an article published on Thursday that the name change would likely cost billions of dollars because of the need to update hundreds of Pentagon agencies, global military bases, stationery and signage. When asked about the cost, Mr Trump said: “Not a lot. We know how to rebrand without going crazy.”
The expense comes despite the Trump administration’s commitment to cutting wasteful spending. In February, the Pentagon proposed an 8 percent cut to the 2026 fiscal year budget, about $50 billion, to fund priorities such as border security and ending “radical and wasteful government DEI programs,” according to a press release from then-deputy defence secretary Robert G. Salesses.
Mr Trump has floated the name change in recent weeks, telling reporters: “Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War.” The agency was originally called the Department of War until it was renamed the Department of Defence in the late 1940s after World War II.
Now-Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Fox & Friends on Wednesday: “We won WWI, and we won WWII, not with the Department of Defence, but with a War Department… As the president has said, we're not just defence, we're offence.” Mr Trump said he would put the name change before Congress, and Republicans have already introduced legislation in both the House and Senate to make it official.
