‘Inconvenient’: Trump aims to end ‘expensive’ daylight saving time in US donald trump news
United States President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will attempt to end daylight saving time, the practice of moving clocks forward to take advantage of longer daylight hours during the summer. Is.
In a social media post on Friday, Trump said the conservative Republican Party would “use our best efforts” to end the practice, which he criticized as incompetent.
“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but it must not happen!” He has written. “Daylight Savings Time is inconvenient and very expensive for our country.”
Trump is scheduled to be sworn into office on January 20, and his incoming administration includes several members who vocally oppose Daylight Saving Time.
For example, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has pressed Congress several times to end the practice of changing the clocks, including as recently as this year. In 2022, his bill, the Sunshine Protection Act, passed the Senate before failing to gain popularity in the House of Representatives.
Rubio, who has been selected to serve as Trump’s secretary of state, has called Daylight Saving Time a “foolish practice.”
Meanwhile, two close Trump allies – entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – openly criticized Daylight Saving Time on the social media platform X earlier this year.
Responding to a user complaint about daylight saving in November, Musk wrote, “Looks like people want to eliminate the annoying time change!” Ramaswami immediately said: “It is inefficient (and) it is easy to change.”
Under Trump, both businessmen have been tasked with leading a yet-to-be-established, non-government body called the Department of Government Efficiency, which will advise on federal regulations, spending and streamlining the bureaucracy.
But all previous attempts to eliminate daylight saving time have failed.
The practice was first introduced in the US in 1918 as a means of energy conservation during World War I. The law mandating daylight savings was repealed in 1919, soon after the war ended.
But in 1942, after World War II began, the practice resumed “to promote national security and defense.”
Since then, the merits of daylight savings have been continually debated on both sides of the aisle in American politics.
Some argue that the practice of turning the clocks back and forth has a negative impact on human sleep patterns, resulting in an increased risk of health problems such as heart attacks. But a 2024 study from the Mayo Clinic says the risk to heart health is “probably minimal.”
Nowadays, most Americans turn their clocks back one hour in early November and forward one hour in mid-March.
What is called “daylight time” runs from March to November during the hot summer months in the US. In contrast, “standard time” runs during the winter, from November to March.
Only two states opt out of this practice: Arizona and Hawaii.
Nevertheless, many Americans now support not requiring the deadline to change twice per year. More than 60 percent of people say they would like to see the clock change end, according to a 2023 survey conducted by research firm YouGov.
About 50 percent of people support making daylight hours and the sunrises and sunsets that come with them permanent. In contrast, about 32 percent support making standard time, which occurs with earlier sunrise and sunset, permanent.
Most countries have no such practice, and some medical associations have said that making standard time permanent would more closely align with the sun’s natural cycle and people’s sleep needs.
