The Trump administration reportedly asked that Dulles International Airport be named after the president. NBC News reported that officials requested that both Dulles and New York’s Penn Station be renamed after Donald Trump. In exchange, the administration would release federal funds required to complete the Gateway tunnel project.
Shortly after last year’s government shutdown, the White House announced it was freezing funding for the Gateway project. The $16 billion project includes a new railway tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York. The administration has yet to release the funds.
Trump’s Dulles Plans
Trump announced plans to reconstruct Dulles in a December 2025 cabinet meeting. “We’re also going to rebuild Dulles airport because it’s not a good airport,” Trump said. “It should be a great airport, and it’s not a good airport at all. It’s a terrible airport.”
Trump said the airport was “incorrectly designed,” though he said “it’s got a beautiful terminal” designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen.
“We’re going to go ahead and turn it around and we’re going to make Dulles Airport … we’re going to make that into something really spectacular,” Trump said. “We have an amazing plan for it.”
Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy added that the administration is also planning to request bids to revise the airport’s people movers, or mobile lounges, which transport travelers between planes and terminals.
Dulles Proposals
DOT issued a solicitation for design concepts and financing proposals for Dulles. The most detailed proposal was submitted by aviation architecture firm Bermello Ajamil & Partners and London-based Zaha Hadid Architects, Washington Business Journal reported. The firm’s renderings feature a new Donald J. Trump Terminal.
Dulles is already in the midst of some major changes, including the addition of a new concourse. Last July, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s new master plan outlined how the airport would grow over the next several decades. It included a goal to serve 38 million passengers per year by 2040.
Republican Congressman Addison McDowell introduced a bill in January 2025 to rename Dulles after Trump. The bill did not progress past the House Subcommittee on Aviation.
Feature image, Nate Hovee/stock.adobe.com
