Trump plans to recreate Department of War as ‘it had a stronger sound’

President Donald Trump on Monday said he wants to scrap the name “Department of Defence” and bring back its original title, the “Department of War,” arguing that the older name “had a stronger sound.”

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump told reporters the change could be announced “over the next couple weeks,” adding that Congress may not even need to approve it. “We’re just going to do it,” he said.

“When we won World War I, World War II, it was called the Department of War. And to me, that’s really what it is,” Trump said during a joint press event with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. “Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was the Department of War. Then we changed it to the Department of Defence.”

The War Department was created in 1789 and lasted until 1947, when President Harry Truman reorganised the military into the Defence Department as part of postwar restructuring.

Trump, joined by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth — who has pledged to restore a “warrior ethos” at the Pentagon — said the current name sounds weak. “So Pete, you started off by saying the ‘Department of Defence,’ and somehow it didn’t sound good to me. You know, it didn’t sound good. ‘Defence,’ what are we ‘defence,’ why are we ‘defence’? So it used to be called the ‘Department of War’ and it had a stronger sound,” Trump said.

He also brushed aside criticism that the move is only symbolic. “I don’t want to be defence only,” Trump said. “We want offence too.”

Trump has hinted at this change in recent weeks, even calling Hegseth his “Secretary of War” at a NATO summit in June. He argued the post-1947 name reflected “political correctness” rather than strength. “If you look at the old building next to the White House, you can see where it used to be secretary of war. Then we became politically correct and they called it secretary of Defence.”