Federal panel approves Trump's 250-foot arch near Arlington Cemetery

Lawsuits seeking to block the project leave the construction start unclear

The National Capital Planning Commission voted 8-4 on Thursday evening to approve construction of President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot (72-metre) triumphal arch in Washington, after nearly nine hours of public comment on the project.

The Trump administration has said construction could begin as early as this week. It remains unclear when work could actually start, because a number of lawsuits are seeking to block the arch.

The project has drawn the nickname “Arc de Trump”, a play on the name of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and is meant to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States. A rendering of the design from earlier this year shows a golden, winged Lady Liberty statue on top of the arch, flanked by two gold eagles, with the phrases “One Nation Under God” and “Liberty and Justice for All” inscribed in gold on either side.

The Trump administration has said the arch would double as a complex to store military equipment, complete with the ability to deploy snipers and drones. “There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World,” Trump previously wrote on his Truth Social platform. He added that, of “the 59 top cities and Capitals”, Washington is “the only one in the world that does not have a triumphal arch”. He did not specify which cities he was referring to.

Opponents argue the arch will block the view of Arlington National Cemetery, the resting place of thousands of US soldiers and servicepeople. Some protesters said they would use their bodies to block any construction.

Trump appointees on the commission said the arch would be a fitting tribute to US history and to veterans. Mark Paoletta, the commission’s chairman, said the president understood “it’s important to our national identity to display who we are through grand monuments”. Paoletta said the arch would honour the nation and its veterans and “provide the sacred ground of Arlington National Cemetery with the monumental gateway it deserves”. He and other commissioners said the structure fulfils a 100-year plan to build a monumental work on Columbia Island, just as Congress and various commissions intended.

Anne Wright, who spent 29 years in the US military and also worked in the diplomatic service, told the BBC she would try to stop any construction. “We’ll tie ourselves to the bulldozer, we’ve got veterans in wheelchairs and we’ll chain the wheelchairs to these things,” she said.

Wright pointed to this week’s midterm elections, in which Trump’s Republican Party lost control of Congress. “[Trump’s] policy of war, of ego, they’ve been rejected,” she said.

John Pomeroy, a veteran who served six years in the Air Force, including during the Vietnam War, and whose parents are buried at Arlington, said the arch “would lessen the solemn nature of a visit to the cemetery”. He described Trump’s suggestion that the arch could store military equipment as “silly” and a “half-baked idea”, arguing it would become a target for terrorist attacks. Like Wright, Pomeroy said he would “impede construction workers as much as I can” if they came to the site to begin work.

Democratic Congressman Jared Huffman argued in a statement to the commission that the arch would disrupt sightlines not just of Arlington but of the Lincoln Memorial, fracturing “a view meant to underscore the unity and sacrifice of the American people, and doing that with a structure we often associate with emperors or kings who built grand arches as tributes to themselves”. “This is a tribute to Donald Trump,” Huffman said.

Lawsuits filed against the plans raise concerns about the environment, traffic congestion and safety. There is also a disagreement over whether congressional approval is needed to build the arch.

The arch is one of several construction projects Trump has proposed for the US capital. At the White House, he is facing legal challenges over the construction of a ballroom estimated to cost $400m (£300m). His plans to renovate a 106-year-old golf course, which he has dubbed “trash island”, are also being challenged in the courts.